


Old Enemy Of Mine

by Chaosconetic



Category: Dragon Ball
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 11:23:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 29,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3445280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaosconetic/pseuds/Chaosconetic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a machine full of pure evil energy in other world explodes and enables the denizens of hell to escape; Master Roshi leaves retirement for one last battle against a foe of yesteryear. But will he find closure, or just a long overdue death? (Takes place during the Janemba Movie)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this little fiction because I always felt sorry for Master Roshi being reduced from a fighting badass to a comic relief character; sure the other human characters became somewhat useless as well but at least they got a little spot light time in Z. So anyway, this is my little tribute to an old martial arts legend.

Master Roshi jerked awake from his nap, his favourite magazines falling off his lap as he sat up in his lawn chair, disturbed by the rumble of distant thunder and, something else. How long had he been napping? He yawned, lifted his sunglasses, rubbing his bleary eyes which then shot wide open at seeing the angry dark grey storm-clouds engulfing the clear sunny blue sky that had stretched from horizon to horizon not a few hours before. He’d come out here to relax with a drink a snack and some reading material, even getting some pleasant shut eye out of the deal only to be crudely awakened by….what the heck was going on out there? Extending his senses he could feel all kinds of mayhem breaking out across earth, so much evil energy, He could sense all of those villains, some he knew from times past, others only from tales told, and the Z warriors had their hands full dealing with them.

“Eh, what is it with this dang planet anyway? Why are we always playing host to every super-powered Neanderthal with something to prove? Why can’t they go bother some other planet for once?” He complained aloud, rising from his reclining lawn chair and walking to the water’s edge, noticing how violent and choppy the surf had become with all the chaos transpiring abroad; it was as if every denizen of hell had escaped purgatory to haunt the world of the living, only these ghosts were actually killing people.. 

Master Roshi stared out across the water for some while, taking in the full scale of the catastrophe; then he finally decided to find out what the hell was going on. His mental telepathy wasn’t nearly as versatile or well-honed as that King Kai fella’s, but, yes, good, Goku was still on the planet, for now.

Roshi reached out, locking on Goku’s Ki signature, it took all of his concentration to cover and maintain a link over that distance but he managed; yeah he still had tricks the other Z fighters hadn’t mastered, they don’t call him Master Roshi for nothing after all “Goku, hey Goku, can ya hear me?” Roshi projected the message, knowing he needn’t be loud about it, old Master Shen used to love scaring people with loud abrupt telepathic messages; the jerk.

The response was almost immediate “M-Master Roshi? Is that you? Haha-man, I didn’t know you could communicate telepathically, this is awesome.” Goku laughed, blissfully knowing he needn’t think too loud either.

“Hehehe, yep, I never taught you everything I know, old masters like me have always gotta keep some edge over the younger generations ya know.”

Just then a third very nasal sounding voice butted in, one that didn’t have the common decency to talk quietly, making Roshi yelp in surprise “Hay, who is that? Get off my telepathic line this instant you good for nothing psychic freeloader…..damn it Goku, who are you talking to?”

“Oh, King Kai, you can hear us?” 

“Of course I can hear you, somebody just hijacked my outgoing telepathic link; I mean really, the nerve of people these days, I pay my line rental bills, which incidentally are so exorbitant they make human phone companies look like charities, so the last thing I need is some lowlife tellee-pirate sponging my precious minutes;” The voice grumbled with agitated, snorting laughter “Honestly, I’m telling you Goku, back in my day this kind of disrespectful behaviour would have gotten someone spanked!” 

“I’ll give you a good spaning if you don’t quite your buffoonish shouting; we’re not deaf you silly twit!”

“Buffoonish shouting?! How dare you?! first you muscle in on my personal psychic wave-link, and now you have the nerve to abuse me through it!”

“You’re link? This is my link, you’re the only airwave thief here, not me. So why don’t do us a favour, think yourself away and get your own darn line, I’m trying to talk to my former student here and I’d appreciate a little telle-courtesy thanks you very much!”

“Your former student, have you got a screw loose, Goku’s my former student, not yours….go on Goku, tell him, I was your favourite teacher, I even taught you the secret of good joke telling.” The voice snorted back.

“Goku; who is this obnoxious oaf and why is he yelling at me!” Master Roshi demanded evenly.

“Obnoxious!....I’ll show you obnoxious!”

“Uh, guys?” Goku cut in “There’s no need to argue, I’m sure this whole telepathic airwave thieving thingy is, all just a big misunderstanding.” Goku soothed, failing.

“Says you,” The nasal interloper huffed “But telle-hacking is a very serious crime, not to mention an invasion of privacy.” The sour puss on the other end grumbled.

“Uh come on King Kai, just relax, it’s not that big a deal is it.” Goku reasoned.

“Grrr; oh I suppose not.” King Kai grumbled.

“Ah, so you’re King Kai huh?” Roshi mused “Not big on first impressions are you?”

“What?! Why you discourteous….Goku, who is this rude individual.” King Kai demanded.

“Uh, that’s just Master Roshi, my first teacher, well second if you include my Grandpa Gohan.” Goku laughed “Anyway, I guess that’s why you’re calling master, to find out what’s going on;” 

“Yep, the whole world going crazy out there, all that racket disturbed my nap dag-nab-it.”

“Ahhh, poor baby.” King Kai guffawed.

“Oh shut up you.”

“Well, I’m not exactly sure what’s happening;” Goku mused, ignoring the argument “All of these old bad guys are coming back from the dead, it’s the weirdest thing, not that it isn’t nice to see old friends again. Is this why your contacting me King Kai? Because you know what’s going on?”

“Well if this dolt would quit hogging the tellee-aves and let me get a word in edgeways I might actually be able to explain what happened.” King Kai grumbled and went into a detailed explanation of the explosion of a machine full of evil energy and the strange happenings in Other World and the Check in station that led to the residents of hell escaping, he specifically stated Goku had to get there now and see what the heck was happening.

“Alright then,” Goku said, cheery as ever “Guess I’ll go check in on the check in station.” 

“Ha, good one Goku!” King Piggie oinked with laughter “Check in on the check in station, uh that’s gold.”

“Pah, At least I taught him stuff that’s actually useful.” Roshi mentally grumbled “All this goof taught him was how to crack lousy jokes.”

“I heard that, you no good rotten….!”

“Well guys, I gotta go; and Don’t worry Master Roshi, I’ll have this sorted in no time, so just sit back with one of your magazine and relax….King Kai, I’ll be there in a jiffy.” Just like that Goku left the telepathic link.

“Check in at the check in station;” Roshi shook his head dejectedly “Really Goku, you’ve got to choose your teachers better.”

“CHah-Hum, I’m still here you know….” King Kai’s throat clearing made Roshi scowl “And for the record, you can’t criticize my teaching methods, I’ve heard about some of your training ethics, like getting your students to find you a date before you’ll train them; absolutely shameless.”

“Yeah, well it beats chasing monkeys and insects ya bloated blue bellied hack.”

“Oh that’s real mature….Hey wait, where are you going? I’m not through with you yet.” King Kai called, feeling Roshi closing his side of the telepathic link “Don’t you dare hang up on me! Don’t you dare even think about……!” King Piggie squealed.

“Bye…” Roshi drawled and did just that, hung up King Kai’s own line on him; yeah, he’d only just figured out it was Kai’s line he’d gotten tangled with and ultimately hijacked since they both tried to contact Goku at the same time; it made Roshi smile, an expression that suddenly jolted off his face when the Ki signature of a long dead acquaintance hit him hard in the memory muscle, physically staggering him.

“Demon King Piccolo…..It’s been awhile.”

Ki flaring, that dreadfully familiar Ki, recalcitrant as the monster of his teenage nightmares, it was close too, only a few miles off. He also sensed other far smaller Ki signatures, fading, dying; there was a village in that direction, just beyond the cliff overlooking the beach where he’d met first met Bulma; oh that had been his lucky day. Repressing a nose bleed he refocussed on the raging power of that old nemesis, then extended beyond it, wondering why nobody had come to deal with it, but none of the other Z warriors were nearby, probably occupied with more dangerous threats. Indeed that demon of yesteryear likely wouldn’t registers as a tiny blip on the bad Ki radar of Earth’s protectors today. 

“Serendipity?” He wondered “Or just plain old coincidence?”

It didn’t require serious consideration, Master Roshi was the only one nearby who had a hope of stopping the carnage taking place, he might not save the village from the Demon Kings malice, but there were other settlements near it that he could. Sure the dragon balls could simply fix everything in the aftermath, but that was a cowards attitude, and he was once the master of martial arts, it used to be his job to stand up for the ones who couldn’t protect themselves; and in a way, it still is.

Guess it’s gonna take one old hero to deal with another old villain…..Hm, but am I really up to this?” Master Roshi mused, then realized he was already moving inside to prepare quickly, displaying an eagerness and hunger for the good old days he’d never expected to feel again.

Turtle was napping by the fire, Oolong was away visiting at Capsule Corp and his former student and the ever sexy eighteen were out there fighting with the others, so nobody questioned his meaningful gate. The day outside was looking more miserable by the second, Master Roshi could feel the gathering energy above, the electricity, a storm was coming, a big one packing gale force winds that even now howled and battered the pink walls of his humble abode.

Quickly he dressed in his old more battle worthy black and white Martial Arts GI as fighting in his tropical shirt, shorts and flip-flops was not ideal, he also put aside his favourite sunglasses as they weren’t needed and would only get broken. Done in scantly a minute, he rushed outside, keeping the noise to a minimum so as not to wake that damn turtle, he knew what he’d tell him “No, Master, you can’t beat him, please, leave it to the others to deal with and stay here where it’s safe.” Yeah, safe, since when did he, the Master of Martial Arts back down from a fight, no matter how outclassed he was; it wasn’t a matter of skill or ability, this was a matter of doing what had to be done to stop the slaughter of innocents……and to balance old debts.

Heck if that loud mouth fool Mr Satan was dumb enough to attack Cell head on “I’m not even gonna finish that thought, nor am I going to get into what a load of wasted potential Mr Satan is.”

Master Roshi and the Nimbus Cloud had a rather troubled history, rarely did it ever consent to carry him anywhere, thus why he gave it to Goku. But if what he sensed was true, King Picolo, his ancient nemesis wasn’t far from his little island paradise, lurking about on the outskirts of the western mainland just beyond the beach, killing. Would Nimbus come if he called? Roshi wasn’t sure it would, but it was worth a shot.

“Flying Nimbus!” He boomed, voice so serious and full of purpose that for a second he swore the choppy wind driven waves lapping at his little beach rolled backwards. He waited, and waited, but still nothing. He considered calling again but, no, Nimbus Clouds aren’t deaf, they simply don’t like him and lack his enthusiasm for the finer things in life, specifically the finer –female- things “Drat, stupid cloud, guess I’ve got to ride baby Gamera; oh well…..Baby Gamera!” 

The wait was even shorter than he recalled, the big spinning turtle appeared, Roshi already felt dizzy just watching it come in to land.

“Boss…..it’s been a while; you don’t call, you don’t…..call; figured you kicked the bucket years ago.” The black turtle commented, tactful as ever.

“I did, but you can’t keep an old master down, especially when you’ve got powerful friends and seven dragon balls to back you up.”

“Hey, that’s great.” Gamera drawled sarkily “So, where ya headed?”

“West to that beach, we’ve been over it before, just drop me at the ridge, I can walk from there.”

“You got it boss, hop on and buckle up.”

“Ha, you haven’t changed one bit, still sarcastic as ever.” Master Roshi commented.

“And you’re still as perverted as ever I’ll bet, so let’s not go throwing stones here.” Gamera rasped.

“Sounds good to me.” Roshi said, jumping to sit in a meditative lotus position on the black turtle’s back. 

Gamera began to rotate faster and faster, rising quicker than Roshi remembered, though he sure hadn’t forgotten the feeling of this particular transportation, closing his eyes and focusing inward helped if he recalled right; he’d still be dizzy as hell by the end though, a fact reinforced as they whizzed over the open blue ocean, the water a mutating circular square spinning like a blur beneath him, lucky he didn’t look up because watching those fluffy near black storm-clouds spiral into a swirling vortex might cost him his half-digested lunch and most of his sanity.

Not a few minutes later Gamera eased into a slow steady decent, landing atop a cliff not far from where the Demon King in all his pettiness had just moved on from crippling a small village and it’s populous “Aw-no, I’m too late….I’m sorry.” He grieved for the villagers who died because of his slow rusty reactions, perhaps he wasn’t cut out for this stuff anymore after all. 

Shaking the self-sabotaging thoughts, Master Roshi jumped off Gamera’s back, stood on the spot, waited till he felt he’d stabilized the disorientation, then took a tentative step forward and was immediately assaulted with a major case of vertigo, staggering about like a drunk a dozen beers over the limit before face-planting into the grass “Ugh, why didn’t I bring a bath-bag,” He moaned, the world’s perpetual spinning gradually easing.

“Hehe, just like old times. You alright boss?” Baby Gamera asked.

“Yeah, yeah, fine and dandy, it’s just been a while since I rode, still not used to it.” Baby Gamera made a disapproving noise but Roshi didn’t hear as he picked himself up “Anyway, thanks for the lift.” he offered sincerely, if still on the verge of puking a yellow fountain.

“Yeah-yeah,” Baby Gamera grunted then spun up and away, calling “Call when you ready to go back, I won’t be far.” Master Roshi waved feebly in response, gathered his wits, donned his old Martial arts face and got down to business, walking to the ridge overlooking where he knew a peaceful little settlement of villagers and farmers lived and thrived; the great pillars of smoke and distant crackle of fire and grinding rubble didn’t fill him with optimism that he’d gotten here in time.

Making it to the edge of the ridge, he peered down on the sight he’d feared. Seeing the destruction, strewn dead and smoke rising to meet the gathering storm clouds up-high, a familiar burning anger and gut-churning nostalgia blazed to life within his heart. He sensed Piccolo moving beyond, into the baron rocky climate and dark dead land skirting the once prosperous village. 

Roshi leapt the full eighty foot drop off the overhang, landing in a scorched churned up potato field whereupon he broke out into a full quick sprint. Once upon a time he was once among the fastest people on this planet, but having seen his students surpass him so utterly, the inferiority began to hit home and he started feeling his age. Perhaps he should start training for real again, his exercise tapes are great and all, but sometimes a fella needs more than simple aerobics for the eyes, indeed he needs something to devote himself to, some cause, some, purpose; and Roshi really did miss the martial artist’s life.

In passing he briefly considered checking to see if anyone had survived, but reaching out with his Ki and sensing nothing, he held little hope good fortune had smiled on anyone there today; no, better to catch up and deal with the cause of this senseless death.

Master Roshi supposed he should be scared to be facing the very foe who’d basically killed him once before, if indirectly, but he wasn’t afraid, resolute more like, even excited. He’d not been idle in retirement, laid back perhaps, indulgent of life’s more sensuous pleasures, but even with these past years of relaxation he wasn’t any weaker than he had been in the twenty second martial arts tournament despite keeping only a basic training routine, in fact he was a fair bit stronger. See an old master’s mind never stills and over the past years he’d come up with many untested ideas for new fighting techniques, and furthermore through meditation he’d also developed his own personalized method of channelling Ki. When a fighter rushes an energy attack, it is usually riddled with minor impurities that aren’t harmonized with the body and thus consume more energy than is needed for the attack. This technique fixes that, channelling 100% pure energy while at the same time boosting physical conditioning –and- quickening Ki generation, gathering and output, especially for the Kamehameha wave. 

Actually he could have measured his power level from that scouter thing Bulma had repaired twice and left at Kame house after forgetting about it, but Roshi really didn’t care for the device. A true warrior is measured by their skill, tenacity, by their intellect and philosophies, by their spirit and resolve. Besides, it’d just be plain sad if he didn’t know himself better than some flimsy machine did, all those numbers really stated was how much Ki someone possessed, and okay, he’d concede that overwhelming brute force can win the day, but he’d take sharp whits and mental calm over raw, untamed power any day. What use is raw power if you can’t master it? Or worse, if it masters you? He needed no scouter to tell him he was stronger than he had been since last he confronted this monster, nor did he need one to tell him that same monsters strength was still superior to his own.

Despite his disadvantage though, Roshi felt It would be good getting back into the game Roshi decided, if only this once; he had after all lived longer than any of the Z warriors excluding the previous Kami and his nastier half not far ahead; there was also that strange Mr PoPo guy too, but he wasn’t a Z fighter in the conventional sense. Sadly though, the Fact is Roshi would likely outlive them all thanks to both the fountain of youth and the phoenix elixir he drank well over three hundred years back, now he was rapidly approaching four hundred and felt not a minute older than when he’d taken that first drink “Huh, I’ve been hanging around Goku and the other’s too long, I’m starting to understand the thrill Saiyans get at the prospect of overcoming a challenge greater than themself.” He grinned “Or maybe I’m finally going senile.” 

A feminine scream, an explosion, the deep, manic laughter of a saddest, all coming from the great clearing of baron rocky landscape ahead; another female scream rode the wind as Roshi burst from the trees, leaving the lush green village paradise, vibrant riverbeds and lively forest atmosphere behind him, running straight toward the cries for help and the old foe he’d come to face down one final time. He didn’t have to run far, skidding to a halt at seeing the great eight foot tall figure a few dozen yards ahead. Green skin, pointed ears, the spitting image of his son who was now a family friend, there he stood, the great King Piccolo, with his back presented in blissful ignorance. 

“And better yet,” Roshi thought with a perverse lopsided grin shaping his moustache “A damsel in distress in need of rescuing.” And a pretty damsel she was, lying there on the ground at the looming Demon King’s feet, crying for someone to save her as her tormentor mocked and ridiculed her for being weak; it was a desperate call Master Roshi felt compelled to answer.

Oh yes, she was a beauty, long dark raven hair, a heart shaped face, delicate features, flawless skin, eyes a lovely green, legs long and finely muscled, shapely curves, and generous boobies straining at her green kimono; his mind swelled with all the possible ways she might reward him for saving her.

“Ho-woah-ha- yeah Roshi, you hit the jackpot this time, eh-he-he-he; play your cards right here and you’ll get your revenge –and- the crazy sexy damsel lady in one go. How’s that for incentive to win heh? He-he-he.” At the thought a fountain of blood spewed from Roshi’s nose and he was unable to contain his excited whooping and dancing “Oh-yeah baby!” His pre-victory celebrations piqued his foes hearing, alerting him “Eh crap, there goes the element of surprise; damn you treacherous libido.”

“Who the….?” The ancient bane of human kind whirled, his snarling cut short at seeing a ghost of the past.

“We meet again, Old Enemy Of Mine.” Master Roshi declared in a deadly serious voice, eyes narrowing to fierce slits, mostly to save face.

“YOU!” King Piccolo bellowed, shocked and furious, not noticing the young lady scramble backwards and run off to hide behind some nearby dead trees and rock piles, peeking wide eyed out at the standoff now taking place, tears welling.

Above them the dark woollen underbellies of rumbling storm clouds darkened the daylight, imprisoning the sun from sight, sharp winds scoured the landscape of the dry, scantly grassed plane. Dusty air, cliffs, rocky outcrops and the odd dying tree littered the area where no tumbleweed dared roll and risk breaking the rising tension between two ancient foes staring each other down. The rains hadn’t yet fallen, but they would, as they always must, already swords of lightening lashed out at the world below with a ferocity verbalized in its cracking thunder. How fitting an atmosphere for vengeance Master Roshi mused, smiling grimly; his vengeance, vengeance well-earned and open for the taking, it’s only right he should be that taker, here in this time when this old enemy wouldn’t equate a sporting contest fit for any of Earth’s defenders. No, this was his fight, his day, his vengeance, emerged from retirement for one, last, battle.

Master Roshi smirked, today he might die, but to give this victory to Goku or one of the others would be pointless, there was a score to settle and they both knew it. Master Roshi only hoped the others were too distracted with hell’s other escapees to sense this battle and deprive him of his closure.

“Yes, me;” Roshi finally answered “We have unfinished business you and I; a debt on behalf of myself, and, my old teacher, Master Motaito!!” He clenched his fist before him.

“B-but, your dead,” Old Piccolo stammered “I watched you die at my own hands!”

“Die? Yes. At your hands? No. The last time I confronted you monster, I failed only because the wind blew away the jar I intended to trap you in;” The memory still lingered in Roshi’s mind, how he’d been so close, yet so far trapping this fiend in that jar. How strange it was to think of it now; had Roshi succeeded that day, Piccolo junior wouldn’t have been born and Goku might never have bested his brother Raditz; and his brother would have come, perhaps it might even have been Roshi himself to stand at Goku’s side in that battle instead of his reincarnated nemesis. Scary thought.

Funnily enough the great Demon King suddenly looked worried “Failed, n-no, then that means...” His eyes scanned the ground for a rice cooker jar then jerked back up at Master Roshi’s mocking chuckles, the old man was grinning smugly.

“Ah-he-he-ho, no-no Piccolo; no Evil Containment Wave this time;” Roshi reassured, shaking his head mirthfully “No, this time I’m going to put you down the old fashion way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will Master Roshi find the strength to best his ancient nemesis of yesteryear? Will he get the girl if he does? Or will one of the other Z fighters muscle in and steel his wind….and most importantly, will I get fired from my job as narrator for asking too many annoying suspense building questions....god I hope so……Um, anyway, find out next week on the next exciting episode of Dragon Ball Z!
> 
> Power Levels the those who care for such things
> 
> Master Roshi –skinny old man- base form : 182


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up, this is my first time writing Dragon Ball style combat, or in fact any kind of combat, so try not to expect anything terribly intricate, right now I’m only capable of the basics, but practice and perfection and all that stuff.
> 
> Anyway, Thanks.

“Failed; n-no, then that means...” King Piccolo’s eyes scanned the ground for an electronic rice cooker jar then jerked back up at Master Roshi’s mocking chuckles, the old man was grinning smugly.

“Ah-he-he-ho, no-no Piccolo; no Evil Containment Wave this time;” Master Roshi reassured, shaking his head mirthfully “No, this time I’m going to put you down the old fission way.”

The Demon King blinked then burst into maniacal laughter as the little worm before him dropped into a fighting stance “You? Bwahahaha, you defeat me? How brave, how deeply touching that you’d so willingly throw away your life in futile defiance, again hahahaha…..but as you wish little fool, I’m going to draw this out just to hear you beg for sweet merciful death.” King Piccolo jeered, arrogantly not bothering to adopt any stance of his own.

They stood there for nearly a minute, staring one another down, neither so much as blinking or twitching, the scene was so reminiscent of their previous encounter that Roshi almost believed he’d travelled back in time; except then he didn’t have a pretty lady to impress. Wait a minute….impress, like a magic-man impresses a crowd.

“Old magician proverb, get the audience to focus on one hand while doing something with the other. But can something as devious and cunning as misdirection be summed up so simply? No; and this is no simple minded foemen, yet I feel it will be enough; yes, so long as common sense doesn’t cloud his arrogant egotism.” Roshi mused internally, readying himself to do what he should’ve done long ago.

Gathering the small amount of energy he needed, nothing too taxing or overzealous, Master Roshi channelled the minuscule force of Ki into his fists, clenching them angrily at his sides and glaring at the old tormenter of his nightmares but remaining otherwise inactive, feigning cowardice until he thought Old Piccolo couldn’t take the tension anymore; then, just as the Namek opened his mouth with some scathing rebuke loaded on his disgusting purple tongue, Roshi bellowed “I was deprived of ending you myself when last we faced each other, but destiny has gifted me a second chance, and I intent to use it; NOW!”

Master Roshi threw his white aura encased hands before him, taking a purposeful step forward, but just as the energy was about to leave his palms, he tripped on a rocky protrusion in the ground and his attack shot far too low to hit its seemingly intended target, instead it hammered into the ground a dozen meters in front of said target, shredding the surface of the ground to kick up a thick swirling cloud of blinding brown dust.

“BWAHAHAHAHA! Senile old fool, can’t even direct your attacks properly; but don’t worry, allow me to demonstrate how it’s done!” King Piccolo Cackled flying into the dust cloud, supremely confident as he emerged from its other side to see the old man standing exactly as he had been, an embarrassed look of humiliation and self-recrimination curving his moustache “Emotions soon to be replaced with blinding agony!” The Demon King mentally revelled as he blurred down on his hapless, confused victim, fist pulled back and thrown fourth to connect with…….nothing.

The after image wavered then flickered out before the wide eyed Demon King just in time for the descending figure of the real Master Roshi to land a devastating punch to his long time nemesis’s forehead. As Old Piccolo staggered, Roshi landed with cat like grace, sprung up and delivered a shameless snap kick to the Namekian’s chin, launching him backwards through the dust clotted air to land in a rolling heap over the unforgiving rocky ground. Piccolo raised his arms defensively, readying his eye beam attack for when the pest fell on him in the hopes of exploiting his momentary weakness for a quick win; but nothing happened, no attack, no energy blasts……just, nothing.

Irritated, embarrassed, Piccolo rose, looking around, seeing only the enduring dust cloud still swirling before him; then he understood, the wrinkled twit was back hiding on the other side of his smokescreen again “Well this time it won’t work. You hear me?!” He crossed his arms then slashed them outwards like blades, creating a gust of wind that cleared the dust to reveal a similar afterimage of the old man, this one was poking out its tongue while pulling down the skin beneath one eye.

King Piccolo roared in fury, then instinctually he fired two white hot beams from his eyes into the air above him, only the old man wasn’t there “What? But I sensed him, I know I did!” The Demon King took a breath “Hmm, maybe he isn’t fool enough to attempt the same trick twice…”

His musings were cut short when the earth beneath his feet rumbled and shook; he staggered, too off balance to avoid the figure blurring out from the rocky ground that cracked open and exploded right beneath his feet. An absolutely savage uppercut took The Demon King in the chin sending him skywards toward the old bastard who was already descending from the peak of his upward trajectory, leg extended, and Old Piccolo was simply too disoriented from the ground exploding under him to fend of the first heavy kick to the chest and the second to his head that slammed him straight back onto the jagged churned up earth from which his involuntary flight started; and worse, he also bit his tongue.

Master Roshi stomped his nemesis face first into the shredded jagged gut-rock next to the tunnel he’d created and emerged from “Hehe, I’ve been waiting ages to try my new tunnel-rat technique, not bad for a first test eh? Hehehe.” Turtle Hermit thought as he jumped away, back-flipped once, found his feet, shook his sleeves clear of his hands, made two complex Ki purifying hand gestures quickening the chakras, fingers intertwined into an arch shaped cave, then suddenly his eyes glowed a pale blue colour to match the frost like energy gathering in the crevice of his fingers. Master Roshi drew in a deep breath, the energy briefly intensified then reabsorbed into his hands right before he exhaled a tremendous –BUUURRRRP- beam of blue Ki that shot right out of his mouth and bore down on the still recovering Namekian with the merciless murderous intentions of a Kamehameha wave.

Perhaps it was instinct, or long battle experience from his tyrant days that snapped Old Piccolo to his senses, but he leapt into air just in the nick of time, escaping the great explosion that detonated beneath him, the shockwave sending him into a spin with the shredded grass and debris before he righted himself, hissing from the burns on his legs which had been too close to the white hot explosion. That’s when he looked down and gasped, eyes widening slightly at the size of the crater beneath him, he could’ve parked a whole damn house snugly in its vastness.

“How?...I-I don’t get it,” He muttered “He wasn’t this potent when I last faced him….hmm, no matter, he’s still coming up short on this little grudge match. Aren’t you? You little….!” Piccolo jeered, eyes scanned to where he last saw his quarry before falling silent….the martial arts master had disappeared, again “GRRRR-Come out coward! Show yourself! Come face your doom like the hero you think you are!!” He challenged and belittled, whirling every which way as the old man’s mocking laughter echoed all around him, resonating from every direction. Piccolo scoured the baron lifeless terrain below him like mad; agitated, enraged and even a little nervous, he flinched when the crack of shattering stone gutted the terse silence.

A large twisted rock lobbed by telekinetic Ki powered force flew straight at him from out of nowhere, Piccolo barely spotted it on his peripheries, traveling so fast the Demon King actually felt the air current of its approach before it reached him, or where he’d just been milliseconds before dodging aside “Woah! That was clo…” Another air current, this time from the opposite direction, he moved aside, the second dementedly carven rock flew past and he barely had enough time to sense the third even larger rocky mind propelled projectile rocketing from the opposite direction, it’s timing synchronized with the previous like a pair of scissors snipping shut. Old Piccolo tried to swerve aside but it clipped him in the shoulder, spinning him dizzily in mid-air while hot pain lanced through his right shoulder into his collarbone.

Unlike this new generation of fighters who excelled in screaming power-ups, throwing around raw energy and unimaginative wasteful Ki attacks, Roshi had taken a page from his old master’s book and learned to use his Ki more creatively, like when he learned to part a waterfall with subtle manipulations of the mind through a coaxing, non-destructive touch of his Ki, or the ability to read the mind of or communicate with another through their thoughts. Telekinesis was but one of his more inventive low cost techniques; from what he’d heard, Frieza possessed similar, far more powerful telekinetic abilities, though he lacked Roshi’s appreciation for subtlety, and right now Roshi was exercising that appreciation at little cost to his own Ki reserves “Hehehe, wait till he sees what I do next.”

“That’s it? Rock throwing? You’re done for!” King Piccolo gathered his orientation and stilled his twirling in time to face another oncoming slab of earth, this one far larger and spinning fast his way “GRR-ENOUGH!” He howled, launching himself onto a collision course with the great chunk of broken cliff, performing a backhanded chop that split the great slab in two, but King Piccolo only had time to don his triumphant smirk before the old man’s flying kick took him full in the face, bloodying his nose and throwing him to the wind like a piece of trash. The Clever old bastard, he’d timed his last projectile so he could follow in the wake of its flight trajectory knowing King Piccolo would overextend himself destroying the slab of earth without seeing it’s thrower until it was too late.

The ancient Namekian hit the ground and slid, groaning in pain. He’d not landed a single blow since the battle started, not one; he was fighting a trickster, an illusionist, a coward. Growling, King Piccolo pulled himself to his feet, swaying slightly and rubbing his forehead as the world stopped spinning about him.

“Why you treacherous, insolent….” The Evil Namekian howled, eyes narrowed to slits, gaze following his foe back-flipping away five times to land, hands cupped to his side, muttering something, then a large orb of bright blue energy formed between those hands which shot straight for him in a great wave of sea blue Ki when the wrinkled insect shoved his cupped hands before him.

The attack was familiar, the same attack that little kid with the stupid hair and the tail had tried and failed to defeat him with; clearly this idiot didn’t understand the futility of his resistance, he had no chance, not against the all-powerful Demon King.

“How dare you!” Piccolo reared, unleashing a crackling golden Ki beam of his own to oppose the oncoming wave. With an explosive shockwave the two beams met, struggling for dominance through the exertions of their benefactors; the old man increased his Ki output, adding extra density to his attack, pushing Old Piccolo’s own torrent back a meter or two before Piccolo matched and raised his foe’s bid with even greater intensity, regaining the ground his beam had lost and then some.

Master Roshi grit his teeth, he knew himself to be a much stronger now than he had been when he’d last confronted the Demon King despite hardly having trained in retirement, but back then Piccolo had been older and without his wish, whereas now he had the power of that wish of eternal youth bestowed, and who knows if he’d done any training in hell. Regardless, Master Roshi knew he was outmatched, especially in his skinny old man form, but even so he put a bit more oomph into his attack, gaining another three meters in their Ki shoving match only for Piccolo to match and raise his effort again. No matter, while he had hoped to score a direct hit with his Kamehameha, he wasn’t out of this yet.

Over the distance however, King Piccolo caught the glint of cunning in Roshi’s eyes, problem was he didn’t know what to expect, so he took it for a feeble bluff “What does he have to be so smug about? He’s losing, he’s about to die at my hand again, and he knows it. So what has he to smile about?!” That’s when it happened, the old man let go of his energy wave and front flipped right over the great streak of golden Ki as Piccolo’s attack stole full forward momentum to explode in the distance right when Rosh fell upon him, angling for another kick to the head.

Piccolo threw his arm up to block, but feeling no impact and spotting the after image he managed to keep his wits about him this time and caught Roshi’s fist scant inches from his right cheek then threw his other fist at the old man’s face which Roshi only just block, wincing at the impact as Piccolo let go, spun, and drove an elbow into the old masters stomach, following with an uppercut then additional rapid-fire punches to the abdomen so fast and hard it kept Roshi in the air until The Demon King got board and delivered a solid kick to his head, sending Roshi flying far away to skid through the dirt face first. 

To Piccolo’s surprise, the old man rose quickly, obviously hurting but determined as he charged back. The Demon King grinned wickedly, but it turned to a frown as Roshi’s advancing figure split in two, like two identical halves, then two became four and the four eight. Suddenly they were all around him, circling, closing in, tightening their formation like a noose, lashing out at him with weak but lightning fast blows, seven were illusion he knew, only one was real but even so, he actually had a tricky time blocking all of the attacks while striking back at the false opponents. He’d heard of the technique, Mirror Image if he recalled correctly. He had to stop underestimating the pest and finish this quickly.

Piccolo shoved down his frustration, took in a calm breath, focused. Now easily warding off the old man’s strikes; then Piccolo began tracking the driving movements behind his attackers strikes as he deflected them, anticipating where the next ones would fall, until. The Demon Kick swung out a leg, Roshi’s eyes widened, but he got an arm up to defend; the kick packed such force however that it drove him down sideways to elbow and hip, but years of training had taught him to make use of most unfavourable positions and turn them to a workable counter. And so from there he spun like a break dancer, sweeping a leg to trip his opponent who jumped, retaliating with a stomping foot, Roshi rolled aside into a handstand, pushed off with his palms as Piccolo lashed out, launching himself over the Namek’s head, landing behind him, but Piccolo was already spinning round, a long green arm chopping backhanded, Roshi ducked, shot fourth an open palm, Piccolo crouched, fending the strike with his other elbow then committed to a low sweeping kick, Roshi jumped, not over the leg but onto it, hammering one fist into The Namek’s abdomen then another in an uppercut aimed chin-side. Grimacing from the first punch, Piccolo twisted his head clear of Roshi’s uppercut, then his initial chopping hand blurred back, slapping Roshi sprawling across the ground, however the old master sprang back up almost immediately and they rushed one another, engaging in a hate fuelled melee Roshi didn’t get the best end of, though he got in a few decent licks before a stray elbow sent him tumbling, only just recovering in time to rabbit hop clear of a nasty beam of golden energy.

“Hahahaha, that’s all?! A few seconds of feeble scuffling and he’s all tuckered out! Sooo saaad.” The Namek simpered, but when Roshi stood up not too much worse for wear save for some scrapes and bruises, Piccolo’s glee soured to rage then back to amusement again “Well, he’s up already; your tougher than I expected, a most admirable effort; shame it’s all for naught though, because this is where it ends for you.” He smirked.

“Funny, that’s just what I was about to say.” Roshi replied, smiling grimly.

“Nonsense, I killed you once old fool, now I get to kill you twice hmhmhahaha.”

“Old? Who are you calling old? When I last saw you your wrinkles had wrinkles! So don’t you start making fun of my age you desiccated green fossil!” Roshi shouted back, dancing angrily on the spot and shaking his fist “There, that should get him angry enough to attack in a blind rage….hehe, bad guys and their egos, insult their prowess just right and they forget they have a brain.”

Master Roshi got his wish, with only an enraged growl for warning, Piccolo put on an incredible burst of speed and struck out with a right; a slightly startled Roshi, though expecting the move, scarcely blocked the strike; Piccolo countered with a right kick to Roshi side but instead of blocking it, the martial arts master front-flipped in the air and brought his heels down on top of the Namek’s bald head while he was still committed to a failed kick. Takenaback, Piccolo had no time for a counter though as another summersault brought Roshi behind his foe and he slammed both feet into the Namek’s back as hard as he could, pushing off to roll back to a standing position as King Piccolo face-planted in the dirt, sliding.

Master Roshi whirled, letting loose one blast of white Ki, two, then three. Sensing it Piccolo turned his slide into a roll then a nimble sideways hop. Four, five, six, Roshi kept up the barrage, Piccolo kept retreating then turned the tables, performing a half one handed cartwheel, letting rip with his twin eye lasers, aiming to cripple the tricky old bastard’s legs so he could take his time torturing him to death. Roshi however was just quick enough and dodged with a far more graceful cartwheel, all the while wishing there were hordes of adoring women here to behold his eloquent acrobatics, actually, he had a beautiful lady watching from cover right now “She loves me, how can she not?” He thought, summoning a ball of Ki and lobbing it at the Namek’s head before sidestepping Piccolo’s answering golden Ki projectile and pressing the attack forward just as the Demon King himself was, both working closer to the other in a complex dance sequence as unappetizing as that silly fusion saltation.

Master Roshi evaded a blast by playing limbo, returned fire, swerved around another gold Ki-ball, retaliated, leapt over another attack, let rip two more of his own before rolling beneath another golden bombardment to find his feet and charge to meet Piccolo’s own hysterical advance, a ball of white Ki in each hand which he thrust forward only a meter away from his opponent who did the same; a mighty explosion. Roshi felt himself being hurled back in this sudden world of bright light, then somehow knowing he’d come out second best, he instinctually side rolled, rose, hearing the earth crack beneath the Namek’s foot stomping the place he’d just vacated. Winding up, Roshi spring, feigned a punch, thrust a leg out instead, Piccolo deflected it with his forearm, but that was the true feign, Roshi dropped, took the tall aliens legs out with a sweeping kick then summersaulted, intending to stomp down on Piccolo’s gut, but the Namek proved artful, spinning on his elbows and kicked Roshi away with painful efficiency. Damn but he was fast Roshi thought, cursing his foe.

The Demon King thought his elderly foe was about to attack again, but he was wrong. Master Roshi began tottering and stumbling on the spot, as if he’d downed a whole cask of heavy liquor in one go; so naturally Piccolo lunged to exploit this perceived vulnerability only for his hammer-fist to fall embarrassingly short of its mark as he tripped over a tipsy Roshi’s outstretched leg. Angry the old Namek rose, struck out with three rapid fists, then a kick, all missing the turtle hermit who spun on the spot, singing some unintelligible drinking song as he clapped his hands and staggered drunkenly back into his startled opponent’s arms before flopping forward to his hands and driving a backwards kick that took the Demon King between the legs. Eyes Bulging, old Piccolo fell to his knees and might’ve vomited if Roshi hadn’t twirled on the spot and bonked him on the top of his head with a hammer fist before toppling sideways like a giggling idiot and rolled to his good side while sailing another flailing leg which clipped Piccolo’s chin, knocking him flat on his ass. Rising with the motion, Roshi swayed about, avoiding two dizzily aimed eye-beams while clapping drunkenly in self-congratulations. Furious, Piccolo dizzily charged, but Roshi was already pirouetting like a ballerina, one heel snapping around which Piccolo narrowly avoided only to see the Turtle Hermit fold like a passing out drunk then flip-flop back into the air with a kick that took the confused Namek in the chest, repeating the motion over and over with varying degrees of success and failure while rambling something about –The Fish Out Of Beer Technique-. Clearly the martial artist was centile.

Several more times did Piccolo attempt to pound on the loopy old goof only to get an elbow to the gut for his troubles; The Demon King simply couldn’t grasp this bizarre fighting style “Grrr, w-what is this!?” He bellowed

“He-heh-he, yep, like I told my old pupil, it’s hard to drunken box, when you’ve never been drunk before hehehe.”

Irrepressible rage drew a howl from the Demon King and he thrust a hand forward, unleashing more of an energy blast than he had since he’d battled that pesky spiky haired little kid with the tail. The Ensuing explosion shot great chunks of earth, dirt and whatever else into the golden cooled air, the light and heat of it consumed everything and when the dust settled there was only a crater left behind even bigger than the old man’s had been, much to Piccolo’s pride. As to the old man himself, there he was, hovering in the middle of the crater, astoundingly still alive, his form flickering in the super-heated air “Wha….” Wait a minute, flickering?......

“The great ball of energy took the Namek King square in the back and he howled with the pain of it, the back of his robes smoking and his flesh painfully scorched; the pain however served to fuel his fury, bringing on a weird sort of focus as he felt the old martial artist’s lightning fast approach. Piccolo snapped out his leg, taking the advancing Master Roshi in the chin and hurling him back, though by then King Piccolo was already giving chase. He caught up, delivered a double axe-handle that slammed the insolent old weakling into the ground which stared with cracks beneath the impact, then he kicked Roshi into the air, grabbed his leg as he rose then began swinging him from left to right, hammering him cruelly into ragged unforgiving ground over and over. By the twelfth repetition his victim went limp and Piccolo smirked in triumph. But suddenly, Roshi twisted in his grip, startling him. 

Quickly Master Roshi, still dangling upside down in his opponent’s grip, twisted, grabbing both of Piccolo’s ankles while driving his free leg into the Namek’s chin, once, twice and a third extra hard time, breaking Piccolo’s grip entirely. As his Namekian foe staggered back, Roshi flipped to his feet, maintaining a grip on the Demon Kings surprisingly knobbly ankles, pulling them up to his underarms at shoulder height whereupon he began spinning around like a supercharged clock-hand, going faster and faster, grinning meanly at Piccolo’s –Woah-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah-woah-WWWOOOOAAAAHHHH!-‘s before letting him fly off several hundred meters, crashing through several trees which snapped like matchsticks to finally slam deep into a huge rocky mountain, giving it some unwanted interior renovations. 

Roshi wasn’t done yet however; he extended an open handed arm, palm facing forward, steadying his wrist with the other hand, his eyes paper-cuts of concentration. The hand glowed bright red in colour and burning hot heat, he held it, held it, waited till the timing was perfect then….”ROSHI SLAP!!!” The Turtle Hermit bellowed and with a final shove of willpower the hand shaped manifestation of red Ki sling-shotted fourth, covering the distance between him and the jagged tunnel Piccolo made hitting the cliff face in an instant, arriving just as the Namek lumbered out like a pissed off grizzly bear, palming him full in the face with a wet towel-whipping –Sthwack- and throwing him back into the cave with an anguished howl as the flesh of his face burned and blistered.

“Hehehe, thanks for teaching me that one ladies.” It was true, the amount of times he’d been slapped by women had got him thinking how damn painful it is, which in turn gave him an idea for a new, if somewhat silly technique, and thus the Roshi Slap was born; they didn’t call him the encyclopaedia of fighting techniques for nothing after all. 

Once the giggles wore off, the dizziness of spinning and the pain from Piccolo’s savage beating suddenly caught up with him and Master Roshi staggered slightly “Ohhh, why did I go and do that so soon after riding Gamera; I think I’m going to…..Uccchhh…” He threw up right there, but feeling immediately better after, he decided it was high time he start giving this fight his all, because he knew King Piccolo certainly would now understand he faced a fighter almost his equal instead of a bug he could just step on. So Roshi used the remaining few seconds he had to recover and gather precious energy while keeping vigilant just in case old Piccolo got crafty and tried a sneak attack, which was unlikely as he lacked the patient strategic mind of his son. But why risk it?

Roshi’s concerns proved unfounded, as indeed, the expected raw came up from the bowls of the huge rocky mountain before the whole thing exploded and the man, or rather Namek of the hour burst from the rubble and surged toward him on a gale force wind, veins bulging all over his green forehead. Shockingly though, Piccolo didn’t attack, instead he halted a dozen meters before Roshi who fought to repress his rising snickers at the pinkish smudge of burnt blistered flesh on the Demon King’s right cheek which vaguely resembled the shape of a deformed human hand. Comical as the sight was however, Piccolo seemed none too vexed. In fact the Namek took a calming breath to dispel his anger and actually smirked, much to Roshi’s annoyance. So it was as he’d suspected; playtime really was over. However it was Piccolo’s turn to be miffed when Roshi returned his cocky smirk, though for a perpetually intemperately tempered fiend, The Demon King recovered his equanimity quickly.

“Well it’s been fun, uh, Roshi wasn’t it? But it saddens me to inform you that playtime is over.” Piccolo gloated, tearing his tattered weighted GI robes off and tossing them unceremoniously to one side where it flopped ungracefully to the dirt, the action a clear conveyance of a message he was now deadly serious about this battle.

Master Roshi gave Piccolo a gruesome smile “You read my mind; it’s time to resolve this little feud of ours once and for all.” Matching Piccolo’s gesture of severity, Master Roshi also discarded his jacket and in the blink of an eye bulked up to 50% of his full power, the same slightly leaner more muscled form he’d fought Tien in back during the 22nd world martial arts tournament, increasing strength without taxing speed or agility. Oh he knew it wouldn’t quite be enough to match Old Piccolo in a physical contest, but it would certainly even the odds enough to give him a fighting chance; perhaps he could even feign to be weaker than he really is, then go at him full force when he doesn’t expect it.

They faced each other, now truly watching for weaknesses in the other’s defenses, searching for injuries to exploit and waiting for the other to flinch or look away. But Roshi’s stance was perfect and Piccolo’s power more than compensated for any lack of form. During this stare down, Master Roshi Took a page from the current generation’s book and in a rare display of showmanship let his aura flare about himself, and Piccolo, not willing to be outdone on the bravado front, did the same. Sea blue waves of power clashed with sunshine gold, crackling in mini explosions before retreating back into the bodies of their respective owners who tightened their respective fighting stances just as the roaring black-grey sky of dancing lightening decided right then was an excellent time to dump it’s watery load in such an elegant manner as to mold this scene of virulent grudges and unsatisfied vengeance into the gloriously dark atmospheric masterpiece of living art both combatants had always intended it to be.

And it was on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, I named that last attack the Roshi Slap because it’s almost a paradox, Roshi gets slapped, Roshi slaps back
> 
> Power Levels for those who care for such things
> 
> Master Roshi –skinny old man- base form : 182  
> Master Roshi –more muscled- 50% form : 245
> 
> King Piccolo –not taking Roshi seriously- : 200  
> King Piccolo –Serious but not 100% - : 250


	3. Chapter 3

The rains fell, thunder rolled and jagged swords of lightning lanced through the iron grey sky, lighting the battlefield bellow where the two ancient enemies stood glowering at each other, both ready for anything.

King Piccolo smirked “Are you ready to die?”

“No,” Roshi smirked “But I’m ready for you.”

“Is that so?” Piccolo jeered.

“Yes, that’s very much so.”

“Then by all means, the first move is all yours.” Piccolo chucked, wearing a sly challenging grin as if he had total confidence in his winning this battle.

“Why, that most kind of you, and it just so happens I have the perfect technique to finish you off;” Roshi returned the smirk “Are you ready?”

“Bring it on worm, there’s nothing you can do to hurt me, not without your evil containment wave..” King Piccolo growled, though despite himself he was sweating a little, even taking a cautious step back to buy himself a little extra reaction time, adopting a defensive stance to disguise his unease.

“Oh, that’s where your wrong……for what chance has the sleeping mouse against the hungry cat standing over it; riddle me that why don’t you.”

the technique he was about to perform is often difficult for the casual observer to take seriously, to them it seems like nothing more than a silly bit of fun at a gullible opponent’s expense, but that assessment is utterly wrong, for the Sleepy Boy Technique is one of the most devious, underhanded and subtly roguish forms of aggression around, even by today’s standards which in no way reduced the impact it might have here.

“I myself never much cared for riddles, but I’ll bite,” King Piccolo mused, smiling patiently “What does a mouse and a cat have to do with our little quandary?”

“Everything…..” Roshi breathed, dropping into an odd stance, the hands stretched out before him, fingers gesturing into the strangest patterns Piccolo had ever seen. 

Piccolo wanted to tense, to act before whatever the old man finished his strange technique was, but he found himself glued to the spot, unable to move or shift his gaze from the deepening black pools or his opponents eyes, eyes that seemed to almost glow with the depths of nothingness.

"You are, sooo sleepy."

“Huh?” Piccolo mumbled, feeling a bit lightheaded; he didn’t know what this was, but he didn’t like it, and worse, he felt absolutely paralysed.

"You are so tired." The Old Man’s voice now echoed as if over a great distance

“What?....” Piccolo felt himself yawning, it was the strangest feeling, the world around him took on a doll heavy purple hue that made his eyelids droop, then suddenly his limbs and muscles felt ten times heavier, his vision was blurring everything else but the old man and his accursed, hypnotic hands. Piccolo knew he should look away, he tried to, fought to, but he just could take his eyes off of those blurry, liquid like hands.

"When you hear me singing, your eyelids will drop"

“What is he, no, I can’t….must kill, wretch…..but, so, sleepy.” Piccolo didn’t understand what was going on, one part of him screamed to attack, but the majority side of his mind thought maybe he could finish this after a nice long rest, come back to the fight fresh….yeah, that sounded like a smart and wonderful idea.

"You're a, sleeeeepy booooy" The old man sand, voice like gentle bells tolling lullabies.

“Sleep, yes….sleep.” Piccolo yawned.

Roshi couldn’t believe it, he was actually doing it, this was insane, such a simple trick, he should have done this the last time they faced off. He couldn’t have felt prouder, in fact he wished he had an audience to applaud, like back in the tournament. Then in the back of his mind, he remembered that rare beauty of a village lady was watching him. Was she still there? Still watching? Could she see how well he was doing? How heroic he was being on her behalf? Did she like his muscles? Did she want to give him a big kiss with those full lushous lips….? 

Master Roshi blinked. Of curse his traitorous libido, that self-sabotaging fiend demanded he glance her direction, and of course out of bad old habit, he did, just out the corner of his eye, but it was enough to weaken the hypnosis. How could he have let that happen, such a simple snare. Curse that woman for being so irresistible. Quickly he pushed his will back into the effort, hoping it wasn’t too late to fix.

Piccolo yawned again “Yes, maybe just, a little shuteye, I think….I think a nice nap, right here, in this dirt, and….” Yawn “And kill you lateeeeer…..Wha!” Piccolo jerked upright, shaking and dispelling Roshi’s hypnosis “Huh?...What the? Hay, stop that, I demand you stop that at once!” Piccolo leapt back, shaking his head violently as if it was full of cobwebs.

“Uh-Drat, I almost had him too.” Master Roshi grumbled, swearing to devote himself fully to defeating King Piccolo without distraction from here on; besides, he could always get his kissies and a good feel after he proves his heroism. Yep, now he was motivated; but unfortunately, so was the Demon King.

“GRRR-Enough of your tricks old man, I’m going to kill you, you’re going to die and that’s how it’s going to be!”

Master Roshi dropped into an immediate ready stance with an exasperated sigh “Then quit yakking and come make it happen!”

King Piccolo’s response came like a freight train, a very angry, screaming freight train that was on Roshi in milliseconds, raining down blows like a hurricane with a thousand fists, forcing the old man to give ground nonstop before breaking through his feeble defences and landing shot after bone rattling shot. Repeated knees to the stomach, a strike to the throat, blows to the head and torso, the assault just kept going and going until Piccolo was practically kicking Roshi around the place like a football while Roshi himself was unable to land a single hit….or seemingly unable as it were for no matter the punishment that was heaped on him, Piccolo was confounded at how quickly the Turtle Hermit kept recovering with only minor bruises and scrapes. The gall, the insolence, the sheer audacity of this puny little human’s defiance infuriated the Demon King. How dare he refuse to die!? 

Master Roshi was doing a marvellous impression of being thrown around like a battered rag doll, but it was mostly just that, an impression, and also one of Goku’s own favourite -make your enemy underestimate you- tricks. In truth Roshi was taking only minor damage because the instant before any of Piccolo’s attacks found their mark, he would shift ever so deftly as to substantially minimize the impact and damage factor, save for some pain of course. Indeed these were the subtle motions a competent warrior feigning to be less than he is makes to appear inferior and almost helpless, motions even another experienced combatant might mistake for inauspicious flinching or jittery nerves before the inevitable impact, provided of course said foe wasn’t paying close attention, or better yet was blinded by misplaced confidence. Such were the lies King Piccolo now bought and consumed with gusto, his own arrogant sense of superiority blinding him to the truth; truth he would soon choke on.

Even so there was one minor form of damage Roshi had trouble diminishing, and that was hitting the ground. There is a certain art to rolling with the punches and falling relatively unharmed from heights, problem is they aren’t all that persuasive when you’re supposed to be letting someone wallop the crap out of you while putting on a credible enough performance to convince them what their eyes tell them is cosier, especially when said opponent is as strong and fast as this one. Frankly this charade couldn’t be maintained indefinitely, never more than thirty seconds recommended, so after a particularly unpleasant fist to the gut that sent him skidding back on his heels to fall on his backside, Master Roshi decided that now, from his current seemingly defenceless position, was an excellent time to spring his trap.

“It Ends! I win, you DIE!” Piccolo shot fourth, a glowing fist pulled back then thrown fourth to kill. 

Faster than the Namekian ever expected, Master Roshi jumped up and caught the incoming fist in his left palm. The expression of utter shock on Piccolo’s face was laughably priceless; too bad he had to wipe it off as it really suited the old monster.

“Wha…!” Was all the startled Demon King got out before Master Roshi pulled him down by his arm and drove a hard knuckled right fist square between his eyes, then letting go of the Namek’s captured hand he followed that with a brutal right hook, a jumping left uppercut reversed into a backward left elbow followed by a harsh right hammer-fist to the top of Piccolo’s head which also reversed into a right backhand slap that was then artfully swindled into a double chop to either side of the neck and a double slap to both of the Namek’s sensitive ears, effectively capturing the dazed Demon king’s bruised, burned face which Master Roshi promptly head-butted then concluded his dazzling combo with an aerial spin-kick to the chin that sent his howling enemy rocketing backwards.

Master Roshi was nowhere near done though, he lobbed an orb of moderately powerful blue Ki even as he chased after his far flung foe, then, putting on a sudden burst of speed, Roshi quickly outdistanced both his own attack and Piccolo himself to materialize behind the Namekian and land a crushing elbow to the back of Piccolo’s head that packed enough force to make his eyes bulge and reverse his flight path straight into the oncoming orb of Ki. The Ki ball exploded painfully against Piccolo’s chest and it would’ve tossed him skyward if Roshi hadn’t pushed off the ground after delivering the elbow to catch up and grab the back of the Demon King’s neck then slam his ugly green mug face first into the jagged unforgiving ground, dragging him a couple of dozen meters along it’s gritty surface like a piece of sandpaper before lifting Piccolo’s head and kneeing him so hard in the face it hurled him high in the air where Roshi was already waiting and ultimately sent his old enemy plummeting with a double axe-handle smash that cratered the rain muddied ground below under his nemesis’s impact, a crater he would very soon expanded upon with a final Kamehameha.

“Ka….Meh…..” As he fell back to earth, Master Roshi cupped his hands at his side, charging his signature attack “Ha….Meh.” Just as he was about to finish, a green and black figure roaring like a wild beast shot out of the brown dirty fog below and elbowed Roshi so hard in the stomach that he was coughing up blood before the proceeding open palm strike to the face and the second giant elbow between the shoulder blades that hurled him plummeting ground side even connected. Even as he fell, Roshi felt the Demon King drive a foot into his spine to quicken his decent, wanting personally to feel his body break. Lucky thing he was in his 50% form otherwise that kick would have broken his back as surely as the jarring ground splitting impact would have crippled him. Nevertheless, now wasn’t the time to embrace pain; it was act or die time.

Master Roshi twisted, rolled, his martial arts instincts taking over as he drove a surprise snap kick up that took Piccolo, who’d obviously figured this would be enough to kill him, in the stomach, launching him out of the startlingly deep hole their impact had made with Roshi tearing out after him. Piccolo’s shock over his foe’s quick recovery allowed Turtle Hermit to tackle him out of the air, however the two were already trading blows in a whirlwind of kicks, punches, knees, elbows and head-butts even after hitting the ground on their feet with Roshi controlling the momentum of the brawl the whole way, keeping inside Piccolo’s guard and pushing him further and further back. Once Roshi even had to slap the Namek like a slighted woman when he attempted a sneak attack with those infernal eye-beams of his, sending the rays of Ki spiralling wildly sideways to collapse a once beautiful natural rock formation resembling an arch; not that Roshi was complaining, it bought him the opening he needed to deliver a none too friendly throat strike that staggered Piccolo, making him cough and wheeze for air even as he fended off and turned aside ninety precent of Roshi’s relentless onslaught. 

Roshi felt he should be winning, but the more hits he landed, the more ferociously savage and powerful Piccolo’s retaliations became, and before long the incensed Namekian stole the momentum of the fight for a while before Roshi snatched it back only to lost it again then win it back once more in what was the most intense, vicious and potentially deadly close quarters contest he’d ever been embroiled in, and the height difference wasn’t helping either. King Piccolo had to be over eight foot tall and Master Roshi was just scratching six in his 50% form. Still, being short has its advantages too, the taller man may have reach, but the shorter man can duck beneath that reach and has more vulnerable places to attack on the taller man. It’s all relative in martial arts, immediate assessment, quick decisions, instinctual counter measures and improvisational skills are part of what makes a truly great fighter and sets them apart from the arrogant misfits who sit and gape like drongos every time a plan they considered infallible falls to pieces. One either change as the flow of the fight changes or they are pulled under by the current.

And so it went, they pushed one another back and forth in a severe storm of drawn out violence, and despite it all they seemed perfectly matched in terms of ability, strength, speed and even the number of bruises and red marks each received at the other’s hand. Master Roshi wasn’t fooled though, he knew Piccolo was holding back, at least a little, perhaps he had to power up or something. Well, whatever the reason, one thing was clear; this fight was only just getting started.

Roshi got his second wind, took the offensive. King Piccolo got his arm up in time to bar Turtle Hermit’s springing advance and was about to strike back when the old man grabbed his blocking arm, spun under it and drove an elbow into his ribs. Piccolo tried to bring his own elbow down to crack the old man’s skull, but Roshi being inside his reach expected this, leaned clear, then catching Piccolo’s other descending forearm, he hung off them like a child on a set of monkey-bars. Annoyed, the Demon King lifted both his arms and the old man to throttle him, but Roshi, also expecting this, adjusted his position, tightened his grip and launched both legs back, slamming his feet into Piccolo’s face. The Demon King grunted, staggered a bit, but recovered too quickly for Roshi to extricate himself from the path of a sudden vicious knee that rammed up into his gut hard enough to fold him in half and brake his hold on Piccolo’s arms, one of which elbowed Roshi hard between the shoulder blades, slamming him with bone rattling force against the ground.

It would’ve been a tricky situation if reflex hadn’t made Roshi curl up and roll forward with the impact then scissor his legs out, tricking Piccolo into automatically stepping back whereupon Roshi transferred all his weight to his hands, brought his legs together again then forcefully pushed himself up and backward, unbalancing his opponent with a firm two-legged kick to the chest, then, twisting in the air with the momentum, Roshi aimed a downward right hook at the Demon King’s face, but Piccolo caught the punch so Roshi kicked him in the side instead, and the kick connected, but in achieving that small success he’d left himself open to the green fist that slammed into his forehead with dizzying results. Still, despite the shot throwing him back some meters, Master Roshi kept his balance, merely skidding back on his heels, his guard still up, awaiting King Piccolo reprisal, and it came, just not in the fashion he’d anticipated.

The bombardment came then, a combined onslaught of Ki beams shot from both The Demon King’s eyes and fingertips; Master Roshi barely had time to evade before the golden streaks began shredding the ground around him. The beams weren’t aimed randomly either; continuous, unrelenting and contrived to kill, Piccolo was being thorough, not only aiming at Roshi but also covering all the direction Roshi might feasibly counter attack from, effectively forcing him to remain dancing on the defensive and trapping him in a situation where only his speed, agility and centuries of experience kept him a hairs breadth from death. Constantly retreating, Roshi dodged and desperately dodged as King Piccolo displayed a deranged flare for Ki style calligraphy by scorching a jagged ever growing line pattern of shallow smouldering groves in the dirt around him, each groove symbolic of a death avoided. Roshi dodged until one lucky shot blasted him tumbling away, and despite managing to cross his arms into an X to block, the Ki burns were still enough to down him. 

Tasting impending victory, King Piccolo quickly clapped his hands together, enveloping them in an eerie bronzy glow, then, with a terrifying war cry, he thrust his hands before him, this time cutting loose a full on beam of energy the point of which was shaped suspiciously like deformed arrow head, and it was baring down on the dazed Master Roshi with astonishing progress. 

Roshi had only one hope of surviving it, and only one technique to ensure he did. But after all this fighting, was he strong enough to use it? “Oh I hope this works.” He thought and threw his hands forward, palms pressed together with fingers curled inward like opposing crab pincers as he concentrated all his energy into a warding net formed with invisible weaves of telekinetically bolstered energy which, with great strain and a great concussion wave, trapped Piccolo’s oncoming beam like an angry cat tossed in a sack. Master Roshi called it -The Ki Catcher-; however it does more than simply catch Ki. Once the net enshrouds a foes energy blast, Roshi channels his aura into the net’s invisible weaves and, provided the captured energy doesn’t utterly eclipse his own, he can overpower and ultimately convert, or rather –tame- the Ki tangled in the net, and then, for the best part, the net becomes like a tarpaulin and bounces the energy wave back at its creator even stronger than before.

Still, it was a near thing; the power Piccolo had shoved into that one blast almost broke the hold of his net and it took everything Roshi’s 50% form had to overwhelm and turn the captured golden energy blue; he almost lost control of it twice despite the whole process only taking a matter of about three seconds. Roshi did it though, overwhelming Piccolo’s static influence on the Ki with his own, then, struggling to a semi standing position, Roshi took a laboured step and threw his hands forward exhaling a warcry and redirecting Piccolo’s own converted Ki blasts back at him. Thank goodness beings like the Demon King are so full of themselves because had the Namekian not been so confident of his victory and instead payed attention, he’d have realized intensifying the beam even a little would have assured that victory. But instead he stood there laughing and gloating; pausing only long enough to gape stupidly as his own attack came flying back at him. 

Roshi could also have absorbed that energy into himself, but that wouldn’t have be wise as every living organism has its own unique specifically attuned Ki signature, meaning Piccolo’s Ki wouldn’t mesh well at all with his own, and while it’s true energy can be transferred between two parties willingly, it isn’t the case with energy unleashed through aggression; that’s not to say he could use the energy, but that kind of bad alchemy comes with any number of dangerous and even fatal side effects, especially when mixing Evil Ki with Good Ki which is a sure recipe for spontaneous combustion if ever there was one. 

Sadly it was too much to hope hijacking Piccolo’s attack would win the day, and it almost did….almost. Seeing his energy beam about to fly back in his face, The Demon King yelped, threw up a shielding arm as he leapt aside, avoiding all but the edge of the great beam which scorched the hell out of his shoulder and spun him around twice with the force; unfortunately though it wasn’t enough to detonate the beam itself which shot off into the rainy grey sky without a single boom. Staring at the nasty scorch and hole burned in his favorite GI, Old Piccolo hissed through his teeth in pain and fury, completely disbelieving what just happened. 

Luckily though, Master Roshi wasn’t suffering from the same inertia and had the good sense to seize an opportunity when it presented itself. Still, deflecting that blast had taken a bit out of him, but not as much as he’d expected and he was still in good enough shape to fight. But would it be enough? “Well, only one way to find out!” He made his move.

Faster than he thought he’d ever moved in his life, Master Roshi blurred toward his unwary enemy and jabbed a soled elbow straight at the Namekian’s windpipe only for his strike to pass right through the one thing he’d not expected “Gah, afterimage?! You cheapskate no-good rotten copy cat!” Master Roshi raved loudly just as the copy-cat in question rematerialized and kicked him in the back, though luckily Roshi had sensed him at the last instant and started moving forward with the arc of the kick, avoiding the bulk of what might’ve been a devastating blow “Alright, you want to play that game, fine!” 

Instead of crashing in a heap, Master Roshi performed a nimble mid-air flip and rebounded off the ground straight back at the Namekian, his out slung fist passing through another afterimage of a particularly startled looking Piccolo. This time though Roshi wasn’t thrown and a scant instant later King Piccolo loomed up behind him and threw a kick that passed through Roshi’s own after image which faded just as the old man himself attacked from the side, dispersing another of Piccolo’s afterimages who in turn scattered Roshi next afterimage. Soon the surrounding area was filled with waxing and waning copies of the two combatants snarling, sneering, smirking and even pulling faces at eachother as they played their roundabout game of cat and mouse, a game that Roshi, who was an old hand at this, won with a triple afterimage and a well-timed punch to the Demon King’s jaw.

Piccolo tottered backwards, growled, rubbed his aching jaw, then actually smiled “Hmhaha, not bad, not bad at all; I’m, impressed, really I am;” King Piccolo panted with a chuckle, still catching his breath as Roshi himself was after their long engagement “You should be proud, only one other has ever managed to draw blood against me.”

“Yes, a little boy with a tail and a natural gift for mischief if I recall;” Master Roshi jeered “He was my best student you know, quite fitting when you think about it, a descendant of the same martial arts school you decimated is the one who finally ended you.”

“A fluke that shall never be repeated, I assure you;” Piccolo snapped, wiping some blood from his lip “In fact once I’m done with you, I think I will go find that spiky hair little scoundrel, or man given the passing of time, and make him suffer so exquisitely he will beg me for death.”

This time it was Roshi’s turn to chuckle smugly “Oh, you really haven’t caught on yet have you? What, weren’t you paying attention to your roommates in hell? No?” Roshi tutted, shaking his head “Well you should’ve made their acquaintance, and not just because anti-social behaviour is unhealthy, but because most of them would tell you their one way ticket into the purgatory you now know so intensity was given to them by that same spiky haired boy with the tail, or one of his allies;” Master Roshi was actually laughing now “Oh, but wait, here’s the kicker; any one of your Hell-mates, any –one- of them, alone, could destroy you with a flick of their small finger.” 

“Nonsense!” The Demon King snapped “Lies, your merely stalling the inevitable.”

“Oh come now, surely you’ve met them? Surely you already know this? Or have you spent all this time brooding and sulking in denial under some dark rock?...No, stupid question, of course you have, but see here’s the thing,” Roshi took a step forward, raising a hand to his mouth conspiratorially “I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” Piccolo blinked, Roshi grinned “I’m nothing compared to my students now, both my students, and their best friends, one of whom is in fact your son, Piccolo Junior; and guess what? He alone eclipses the both of us in power several -million- times over.”

In a lot of cases the egomaniac fighter mistakenly believes that anger makes them stronger, and while there can be a savage kind of strength in reckless action, what little beneficial strength rage gifts is ultimately far surpassed by the accursed burden of stupidity that comes with it, stupidity that now afflicted the irrational Demon King in abundance.

“No, you’re lying, you’re stalling, nobody is stronger than me, I am the ultimate warrior, I am the greatest this universe has ever seen, and soon I’ll prove it to them all, starting with YOOOOU!!!!!”

Roshi let out an exasperated, almost rye noise and met the maddened Nemakian’s charge in a whirlwind of fists feet and Ki, all the while saying “We’re old news Demon King, yesterday’s castoffs, forgotten, and the sooner you accept it the more bearable your eternity in hell will be…..for me!” Roshi landed a bone rattling blow to Piccolo’s ribcage but took a shot of his own and was flung away.

“Your lying, your lying, your lyyyyying!” The Demon King howled, amping the ferocity of his assult to levels Rosh was hard pressed to match. Over the gutted ground, in the air with the rain and lightning falling overhead they’re battle raged, concussion wave, flashes of Ki and the clashing of limbs compounding the thunderstorm’s electric brilliance.

Damn he’d forgotten how hard battling a stronger foe could be on the body, his training in retirement hadn’t exactly been intense, but intense or not, training and even sparing simply can’t compare to a battle as involved and savage as this. If he survived this fight Roshi swore he’d start training for real again, maybe even do what Goku and the others did with the gravity chamber. It bore consideration at least, especially since he was sure to outlive everyone he now knew.

Abruptly the engagement split, opening a few yards between them, leaving the two ancient foes glowering at eachother. Then, oddly, King Piccolo began chuckling “Ah, I see your angle now….so you think goading me into an irrational stupor will give you an edge huh?”

“Am I really that transparent?” Master Roshi asked, perhaps a little sarcastically.

“Like glass…..” Pccolo gave him a grin that was all teeth “And like glass, you’ll soon shatter beneath my might.”

That one made Roshi laugh “Ha! Nice line, you should take up acting, the theatre troops are always looking for a generic stereotype villain; and I think you’d fit the bill nicely. Don’t you?” He laughed again, seeing the vain pulsating at Piccolo’s temple.

Piccolo was grinding his teeth now “Your still trying to anger me….you will not succeed.” Growled the lying Namekian.

“Oh I don’t know, you say that now, but I think this’ll get you nice and angry.” Suddenly Master Roshi threw his arms wide, making Piccolo anticipate some feeble energy wave, but instead Roshi jumped and punched both hands deep into the ground, shattering the rock, concentrating with all his will on unleashing and directing the Ki that not half a second later irrupted right underneath the Demon King to send him flying into the air on a geyser of blue energy, his insignia branded blue tunic smocking as he screamed in pain. 

Seemingly having won the element of surprise, Master Roshi ran, jumped, leg extended just as Piccolo righted himself high above the ground and launched an overzealous wave of golden energy that engulfed Turtle Hermit’s oncoming form. King Piccolo smirked at his easy victory then gaped as his beautiful golden wave of destruction was split in half and detonated by a much smaller blue bubble that used the resulting explosion to bridge the gap between them faster than the Demon King could blink, and before he knew what hit him, the heel of the Turtle Hermit’s shoe stamped it’s imprint on his forehead hard enough to set the world around him spinning.

Simultaneously using the kicks force to push himself and the Demon King far away from eachother, Master Roshi rebounded off the Namekian and corkscrewed in the air, controlling the direction he flew toward, eyes intently fixed on his goal as he landed in a handstand. Exploiting this fortuitous break in the action, Roshi performed three front flips in the direction of an ugly grey dead looking tree, stopping about ten yards away from it, where he gathered and channelled his telekinetic power into his outstretched arms and used the power to simultaneously uproot and carve the foot of the trunk into a giant murderous spear point, finishing just as he finessed the giant spear into position hovering above and just in front of him. Then with a sharp fluid motion he spun and launched the spear like a javelin at his foe who even now was rushing toward him with bloodlust in his eyes.

A comical yelp actually escaped the Demon King at seeing what was coming his way. With scant meters to spare, Piccolo disintegrated the tree-trunk turned pointy projectile using his eye-beams, watching as the splinters rained down on the rapidly advancing Master Roshi whom he nearly didn’t spot. Leaning forward to gain extra sprinting speed, The Turtle Hermit summoned a sphere of energy in one hand and feigned a lunge to the right then launched both the glowing sphere and himself to the left. As Roshi intended, Piccolo did mistakenly dodge left, but he also spotted the incoming Ki sphere and ducked it then quick as a flash struck out to put an end to the old man’s reckless bull-charge; and failed.

“Time to give my new Image Projection technique a whirl!” Roshi thought as Piccolo crippled his tree spear and ducked his pitiful Ki projectile. 

Image projection is another of Master Roshi’s new techniques, or rather a modification of an old one. Where an afterimage remains static, an Image Projection does the same thing, only it pushes that afterimage straight at the enemy with telekinetic propulsion, and since people moving at speed are usually somewhat blurry, most foes shouldn’t be able to tell the difference until they attack the illusion, leaving themselves open to the illusionist shadowing their illusion. If timed correctly and balanced between stymieing the opponents reaction time and making the illusion appear threatening, for example with an arm pulled back to strike, it makes this technique very handy in headlong rushes, and to Roshi’s delight Piccolo did attack the illusion, his eyes bulging out of his head with disbelief as the afterimage flicked out to reveal the real Roshi following behind it.

Roshi’s leapt straight at his quarry and opened up into a ferocious blurring bicycle kick. Left-right-left-right-left-right, his legs pumped, peppering the green man’s ribs, chest and face with hammering blows, the momentum constantly driving Piccolo further and further back on a hopeless defensive that lasted several seconds until Roshi’s forward momentum dissipated and he quickly shifted tactics by corkscrewing in the air, gifting the reeling Namekian a spin-kick to the jaw, a straight right punch to the nose, another spin-kick to the chest and a free flight of several meters in whatever direction he was now being catapulted.

Master Roshi didn’t let up though, immediately he gave chase, but just as he caught up, he was a heartbeat to late parrying when King Piccolo halted his backward propulsion by bracing his hands against the moving ground and performed a flip kick that tossed the Turtle Hermit away like any number of tumbleweeds journeying through the desert. Instantly Piccolo was in hot pursuit, making Roshi think this fight was growing more precarious than two equally heavy fat guys on a rickety old seesaw as he pushed off the ground like Piccolo had and launched himself into the air with The Demon King hot on his heels, both of them trading blows on a horizontal axis as they rose higher and higher into the air to the point Roshi thought they might reach the clouds and get themselves fried by all the lightning dancing about up there. Up and up they went, right up until Roshi reached the peak of his jump, freely gifting Piccolo, who had the ability to fly, a momentary advantage between rise and fall; but it was enough. 

Falling, falling, that was the next thing Master Roshi felt after the heavy combination of painful hits he’d just taken. Now through the white sparkling stars dancing behind his eyes he saw the ground looming up fast to make his acquaintance. From a lesser height he might endure the landing, but this was too risky, so rather than attempt to physically absorb the impact and risk serious injury, Master Roshi gathered both Ki and Telekinetic energies, then just a few meter before impact, he unleashed an invisible wave of force that momentarily tampered with gravity and punched a perfectly smooth bowl shaped indentation in the ground where he landed light as a feather. This trick, though handy, was in fact part of a greater rouse to later spring on the sadistic Namekian, but it wasn’t time for that though as Piccolo hadn’t yet commented about his inability to fly, but that would come, proud egomaniac that he is, even old Piccolo should be starting catch on by now.

His great enemy briefly levitated above, looking down with mild surprise, again reminding Roshi of the foolish dependency the new generation place on their ability to fly and making him huff in disapproval as Piccolo landed a casual dozen yards away. They were both breathing heavily and had their share of scrapes and bruises, but to Roshi’s dismay it appeared his enemy was in slightly better condition than himself. He wasn’t giving up though, far from it, he’d never realized how much he missed the exhilarating rush of this life. Still, he couldn’t help wondering if confronting the monster had been such a good idea, he could very well be killed again. But no, he was here to settle a score and that’s what he’d do.

“Ah, that punch was well placed for a fella your size.” Master Roshi stated, actually complimented, not because he admired his foe but because it actually was a skilful shot, quite the surprise for an opponent who relies on his brutish size and power; that and it’s always fool hardy not to respect a competent enemy, let them think you underestimate them, but don’t actually underestimate them for real.

“Why thank you, I do try to put on a good show for my victims; so I hope your enjoying yourself, because it all downhill from here.” A smirking Piccolo chuckled smugly, then stiffened to his full overwhelming height, a sudden brief but terrible glow flashing in his eyes before his aura flared gold around him, only this time it was different, as if he was on fire, licking and crackling flames of whispy life sapping bronze, Master Roshi actually flinched away, feeling the fatiguing, energy draining paralysing heat coming off of them, flames so hungry they’d sap the hydration, the will to fight and the very life force out of a man in seconds, and Roshi didn’t need to be a genius to figure out not to let those fires touch him even before an exhalation from the Demon King sent those hungry bronze death fires his was on a powerful on rushing air current. This had to be one of the most cowardly and diabolical techniques he’d ever witnessed.

Master Roshi focused his whole aura into an invisible protective shell that shrouded him like a cloak, weaving together any gaps and leakage points tight so the flames couldn’t get in, feigning complete helplessness as he did, even whining “I, I can’t move….wha, what is this?”

Picolo growled an evil chuckle, it would be over soon he knew; this very technique had thwarted that little spikey haired brat in their first encounter, and though this old man, this –Roshi was stronger than the brat was that day, he isn’t as strong as the child had been in their later rematch, so this should be more than enough to crush this insolent martial artist without fear of getting another hole punched through his chest; damn that had really hurt.

Roshi feigned weakness. Piccolo rushed forward, throwing a punch with far more force behind it than actual speed or technique, it was the kind of punch reminiscent of a flying brick screaming the message –I’ll smash whatever I hit-, except what it hit was the waiting palm of a miraculously recovered Master Roshi who all but winced at the impact before drove one foot so hard into a very shocked Piccolo’s gut that it half doubled him over with saliva and blood spraying from his mouth. Then Roshi repaid the Demon King punch for punch, planting a fist at the end of the wrenching monster’s nose which caused him to totter drunkenly backward and plop wheezing and sputtering on his oversize can.

“What….Impossible….” Old Piccolo gasped, hacking up more purple spittle “How did you? UGH!”

“He-hehe, sorry, but I know better than to expose myself to strange energy techniques, too bad really, it was a good trick, and you certainly believed it’d be enough to defeat me….but you see;” Master Roshi grinned devilishly “Here’s the funny thing about perception….It’s an unspoken narrative and a paradox all rolled into one clever concept definable only in how it is received, used and and projected….for example.”

Piccolo quickly rose, tense as a bow string, the old man was up to something, his arms were crossed in an X before him and his eyes were suddenly glowing pale white, eyes Piccolo once again couldn’t tear his gaze from quickly enough. Without warning the very air around the Martial Arts master began to swirl in a bizarre vortex of a deep icy blue, rapidly expanding and reaching out until it enshrouded them both, hiding the surrounding rainy landscape behind swirling walls of blue and black, as if they were trapped in a cylindrical tunnel without an up or down, a left or right or an entrance or exit; it was like they’d been transported through a portal to a strange eldritch world. 

“Wha-what it this?...” So dumbfounded by the sudden dizzying tunnel of colour, Piccolo nearly missed the old man disappear...no, wait, not disappear, more like break apart into long ethereal blue streamers virtually indistinguishable from the strange vortex walls all round him. The streamers fluttered fast toward him like a stone skidded across the surface of a lake, ripples and all to circle around him. Then before Piccolo knew what was happening he was being assaulted from all sides, a blow to the jaw, two more to the stomach, a sharp impact on the back of his neck then another behind his leg, dropping him to his knees. Savagely the Demon King struck at one of the streamers fluttering around him, his fist finding only air as another sharp blow impacted painfully in the small of his back, he rose whirling and lashed out with an unsuccessful chopping arm that of course found nothing while the punishment of his invisible cowardly foe grew increasingly frequent and merciless.

Grunting in pain and getting battered to crap, Piccolo descended into a blind fury and let loose a wayward volley of Ki bolts in all directions at phantom attackers, hoping to strike it lucky, and in a sense he did as the Ki seemed to briefly pierce the vortex’s swirling walls, revealing the desolated landscape of their battlefield beyond before the punctures mended. Now he knew, it was an illusion, somehow this old bastard had figured out how to project his aura and use it to tamper with his opponent’s sight and perceptions. Well, that was easily dealt with. Throwing his arms wide and roaring to the heavens, the Demon King flared his own aura to its brightest, awakening the absolute penicil of his youthful strength and powering up to his maximum. 

The sheer abruptness of King Piccolo’s rising Ki and wildly blazing aura was more than enough to disperse Master Roshi’s blue vortex like so much unwanted smoke and catapult the mortified Turtle Hermit himself who knows how far away until he slammed into a large rock face so hard his likeness might as well have been paint there. Roshi could now feel the power pouring from his long time enemy, true it was nothing compared to Goku or the others these days, but it was enough to eclipse his own abilities. Damn it the Demon King actually felt stronger now than he had been when he and his Master Mutaito trapped him in the electronic jar over three hundred years ago. One thing was very clear though, this battle was about to get very ugly, particularly for Roshi himself, he still had some tricks and other devious techniques left to surprise the Demon King with, but would they be enough to overcome a power this much greater than his own?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Power Levels for readers who prefer them.
> 
> Master Roshi –skinny old man- base form : 182  
> Master Roshi –more muscled- 50% form : 245
> 
> King Piccolo –not taking Roshi seriously- : 200  
> King Piccolo –Serious but not 100% - : 250  
> King Piccolo -100% Full Power- : 275


	4. Chapter 4

King Piccolo stood screaming at the heart of a whirlwind of blazing golden power. Despite having felt far stronger energies in times past, and even presently with hell’s escaped hordes rampaging the earth abroad, Roshi still struggled to stand upright in the face of the Ki driven tornado that slammed into him, he could barely even see his illuminated foe with all the wind blowing in his eyes “Ah, dang it, why’d I leave my sunglasses behind, ugh, real smart Roshi, real smart.” No sooner than it started did the Demon King’s enraged howls and fluctuating power desist and the green giant himself was right there, full on attacking Roshi before he even knew what was hitting him.

Unlike before where their battle was but a small difference between stalemate, this particular exchange was all one way traffic. Master Roshi was lucky if he could fend off a third of the mad overwhelming bombardment of savage blows now falling on him like so many hale-stones. It was as if the Demon king had ten thousand fists and all of them were pledged to the singular purpose of pounding him into a bruised, bloody, pulpy mess. Already Roshi was covered in red knuckle shaped welts as he was forced on a very rapid unsuccessful retreat, desperately trying to deflect and parry incoming kicks and punches he could barely follow. If only he could get a moment to recover his breath and bearings, but Piccolo’s sudden power up and even more abrupt assault had taken him both off guard and off balance.

Piccolo’s onslaught was unrelentingly brutal, Roshi wasn’t sure how much more of this he could take, already he was pushing much of his Ki into helping absorb the damage he was taking. Every hit he took came with an impact and pain factor unmatched by all but a few of his most unfortunate experiences, and most of those came from the business end of Chi-Chi’s frying pan. So yeah, he was in big trouble.

Fortune struck like the lightening above when Piccolo overextended and attempted adjustment of his poor footing. presenting a fortuitous opening which Roshi took, sidestepping a very sloppy punch then grabbing the offending arm as it was being pulled back, Roshi made like an acrobat on a trapezium, glad he’d watched so many gymnastics exercise tapes cause it’s what allowed him to swing a good kicking leg up and around to connect a solid shoe-point hit to the side of Piccolo’s neck. It’d been a fantastically executed move, but all Piccolo did was grunt and sway slightly with a smirk that showed Roshi for a certainty just what this final power difference between them meant for his chances. 

The realization had him backpedalling for distance that wouldn’t help much, though to Piccolo, this cautionary tactical move was mere cowardice and he threw his head back laughing like the typical self-satisfied maniac he is. Still, that was fine, Piccolo could laugh; it was a good enough opening, so Roshi attacked. The surprise attack however was barely worth the effort, just a half deflected elbow later and both combatants reengaged in a very one sided flurry of fists, feet, knees and elbows. In a long shot attempt to gain an edge, Roshi jumped into the air, poorly deflecting the perusing Piccolo’s fists all the way up, hoping that when gravity reversed his upward course he could use his falling momentum to break the Namek’s guard and pepper him with kicks and punches. 

Yeah, it didn’t work, because unlike the Demon King, Roshi couldn’t fly, so by default this particular handicap only heightened Piccolo’s advantage. All it took was an opportunistic but well-timed knee to Roshi’s stomach at the peak of his jump that sent him plummeting, or would have, but Piccolo, unwilling to let gravity steal his foe from reach, grabbed the old master by his scrawny throat and unceremoniously began strangling him toward an undignified end. 

Knowing King Piccolo’s reach was to long for an eye gouge, Master Roshi didn’t waste time scrabbling feebly at those clamp like hands, instead he instinctually flexed his neck muscles and bit hard into the strong green fingers vicing his neck. Old Piccolo yelped and let go by reflex and began sucking on his bleeding fingers “ARG, you bit me, you insolent wretch, I’ll….” Was all he got out before Roshi put both hands to the Namekian’s chest and unleashed a burst of Ki that packed a potent enough explosive force to throw the full powered Demon king and himself sailing backwards in opposite directions.

Only mildly scorched, Piccolo rode the detonations shockwave back, but as he did, his arms elongated, one clamping around Roshi’s shoulder and the other one delivering a powerful backhand slap to the cheek so hard it spun the old master around so far that his captured arm dislocated with a painful wet popping sound; only piccolo wasn’t done, after halting his own backwards flight with levitation, his slapping hand grabbed Turtle Hermit’s other arm and pulled the old man in like a reverse slingshot to slam face first into both of Piccolo’s outstretched legs, leaving behind a pair of painful looking purple shoe imprints as Roshi plummeted dazed and motionless to the earth below.

Master Roshi felt himself falling, impact, sliding over rough earth, cuts and scrapes opening, his mind was dazed but his well-honed muscle memory kicked in by reflex, he flipped upright into a pathetically feeble defensive stance, but he was swaying with double vision and folded over with a groan, his left arm was useless, dislocated. He could bare it though, for what really mattered was that Piccolo believed him done for.

Roshi waited, still hunched over, pretending greater injuries than he really had, which wasn’t difficult, he ached all over and his arm was killing him, but he focused his senses above himself as looking up would blow the charade. He sensed Piccolo racing down head first, a nasty ball of Ki in one hand, ready to finish this; yet Roshi waited, waited, then at the last instant, just as the king of pickles lobbed his projectile mere meters ahead of his landing, Roshi leapt backward, clear of the condensed explosion and the Namek’s ground shattering stomp, then pounced back forward, snap-kicking the miffed Demon King in the chin. 

Piccolo skidded back on his heels, the kick had stung but in itself wasn’t enough. Roshi however had anticipated such and planned in advance. Before his mildly hoodwinked foe could recover and retaliate, Roshi thrust his one remaining usable hand forward and a wave of telekinetic Ki slammed like a wrecking-ball into Piccolo’s chest, driving the breath from him and shoving him back several yards every time Roshi repeated the motion, once, twice, thrice, shoving his good hand further forward each time until, with the fourth final even greater push containing the limit of his telekinetic persuasion, Piccolo was thrown clean away, crossing several dozen meters of open landscape to crash through the very same rocky cliff he’d collided with earlier.

Multitasking, Roshi used this precious respite to catch his breath and to pop his arm back in place, an unpleasant task, but he’d had the problem before and so knew the procedure well enough. Time was running out though and this old master knew it was either time to die or time to do something desperate and dangerous. 

Naturally Roshi chose the latter, and only one technique fit the bill. He called it Focushien, a temporary physical and energy boosting technique he’d recently developed, mostly in theory; it was modelled after Goku’s old Ka-O-Kan move, yeah that slouch King Kai did at least teach Goku something useful. Focushien however was intended to improve on Ka-O-Kan, demanding less of a physical penalty while being more stable with greater longevity. That was the theory anyway, but between the laziness of retirement and a lack of testing opportunities, Focushien was extremely unstable and unpredictably dangerous to use, if he botched the attempt he would almost certainly destroy himself before Piccolo could. On the other hand, taking the accompanying risk of Focushien’s utilization seemed a fair trade off for survival as a whole.

“Huh, guess the old Psychic Hammer Technique has Big-Green-N-Ugly thinking twice.” Roshi crowed inwardly; he sensed Piccolo had fully recovered but was in no hurry to retaliate for whatever reason. Perhaps ambush planning? Regardless, Roshi exploited the delay, heightening his passive Ki replenishment technique to harmonize all his chakras and purify chi flow because unstable chi powering such a poorly tried technique like Focushien could prove fatal, so this purification was important to help moderate the possible physical ramifications and overwhelming exhaustion Focushien would reap. After the Kamehameha wave, his Ki channelling technique is perhaps Roshi’s finest invention, regenerating his energy reserves even in combat, obviously not as fast as he spent it but enough to ensure he always had fresh strength and pure Ki streaming through his body.

Ready, Master Roshi gritted his teeth and channelled his Ki accordingly, setting it running white hot through his body. Suddenly his aura turned purple and doubled in size around him, shining radiantly. The power now coursing through him wasn’t nearly what he’d been hoping for, but it was a boost, not much of one true but it should even things out a bit; problem was the technique was consuming energy rapidly, he could feel it taxing his willpower even now. So it was a weird relief to see Piccolo come screaming out of the now decimated cliff-face, because Roshi hadn’t a second of Focushien to waste as he lunged into a furious pounding sprint to meet Piccolo’s charge, legs and fists pumping for more speed.

The game of chicken was on, both closing the distance fast, a head on collision imminent, and at the meeting their fists collided with a booming shockwave, as did their volleys of elbows and knees that followed, matching eachother offense for offense with neither scoring a clear shot. Master Roshi could feel his energy depleting, he’d expected an energy drain but this was too much, every shocking impact juddered his body and concentration, but he maintained Focushien long enough to fake an opening the ever direct Namekian ignorantly attacked, leaving himself vulnerable to Roshi’s swerving uppercut and the jumping back-foot spin-kick to Piccolo’s shoulder that followed. A two for one deal as it happened because Piccolo recovered fast and retaliated with an open palm strike to his chest, though Roshi had the good sense to cartwheel clear of the proceeding twin eye-beams and lob a decoy Ki ball of his own. 

He was keeping up with Piccolo’s peak form, but Focushien’s boost was wearing off and it’s after effects were wearing on his stamina, yet Roshi recharged it, his purple aura blazing to life again as he rocketed back at his opponent, head butting the Namekian then grabbing him by those freaky green tubular forehead antenna things, which must’ve hurt because the Demon King yowled as Roshi swung him around twice then tossed him away like unwanted trash. Piccolo wasn’t having that though and he flipped, pushed off the ground and retaliated with a rebounding head butt of his own; a real eye for an eye guy old Piccolo was. A proceeding kick had Turtle Hermit heel sliding backwards, but Focushien gave him the fortitude to keep his guard up as the green maniac, true to form, came chasing after instead of doing something clever.

The Turtle Hermit’s hands glowed a strange purple colour, then, just as Piccolo struck out, Roshi clapped his hands and an invisible wave of force coupled with an unexpected gust of wind threw Piccolo skidding back with a comical squawk as he clutched helplessly at his sensitive pointed ears which were both ringing and bleeding. A shame it takes a bit to charge that Sonic Clap Technique considering the effect it has on sensitive ears Roshi thought; oh well, hopefully the hearing handicap will stymy Piccolo’s fighting potential and give him the opening he desperately needed to end this.

Putting on an unstable Focushien fuelled burst of speed, it was a purple streak that ploughed a fist in the whimpering Namekian’s face, an elbow into his gut, an uppercut to his jaw, a kick to his ribs, another jumping rotator-kick the neck and a final skull cracking elbow to the base of the neck, all one after the other and all devastatingly damaging strikes. Or so Roshi thought, that’s why it was a little unexpected when one of Piccolo’s arms elongated as he was sailing away, the hand scrabbled for Roshi’s neck but caught his beard instead before reeling him straight into the oncoming elongating leg that slammed hard into his abdomen, sparking magma hot pain to shoot through the nerves of Roshi’s gut as he himself, like Piccolo who’d relinquished hold of his beard, was sent bouncing and rolling across the torn up battlefield, lucky not to fall into one of the various craters now littering the area. Roshi had to hand it to the old bastard; that was one hell of a counter attack.

The last of Focushien’s enhancement allowed Master Roshi to recover and rise before fizzling out completely and letting in all the aches, pains and shivers of natural relapse that even his Ki purification technique was slow to compensate for. It’s a shame he’d not devoted more time to developing Focushien for if he had, this fight would’ve been over before it began. Still, he couldn’t risk using Focushien again, too dangerous, but now without it, he was in serious trouble, Piccolo was lumbering back, and fast. He had to do something……wait a second, Piccolo was running, and quite clumsily, too blinded by pain and anger. Perhaps he could trip the oaf up? Yes, it’s doable, if timed correctly.

Quickly calculating his foes heightened speed, Roshi took a backward leaping bound, using his Ki to shred the earth under which he’d just stood, churning it up into a tripping hazard the Demon King blundered right into an instant later. Roshi pulled back and threw a fist as his old enemy stumbled, windmilling his arms with a comical exclamation. Turtle Hermit’s punch however missed due to Piccolo’s unpredictable tumble, and before Roshi knew it the Namekian barrelled right into him with such momentum that their combined body mass became a great ball of tangled limbs that bounced like a tumble weed several yards across the landscape, cracking the earth and smashing boulders wherever they rolled, trading blows all the while.

It was a very miner burst of Focushien and Roshi’s smaller size funnily enough that won him that insane little bout by sucker punching Piccolo in the ribs and disentangling himself from the vastly unfair grappling match with a retreating kick. He had learned one useful thing from it though, and that’s smaller bursts of Focushien concentrated into strengthening a chosen body part is far safer and less exhausting than fully embracing the flawed technique.

Steady on his feet again, Roshi quickly feigned a dizzy backward staggering spell and piccolo did exactly as Roshi wanted. The powerful Namekian, still on all fours like a savage beast, leapt at Roshi mountain lion style. Too bad nobody had bothered to inform the Demon King the turtle always beats the lion because if they had, Piccolo would’ve anticipated Roshi falling onto his back like an upsidedown turtle with his knees tucked to his chest like coiled springs to deliver the sly kick that took the Demon King square in the ribs as he passed over the Turtle Hermit, yielding sky flying results for Old Piccolo and a rare windfall advantage for Roshi.

The advantage wasn’t wasted; Roshi expertly turned that kick into a kick up to a standing position, then he sprung into the sky after his foe, catching up and taking a desperate offensive with a rabid volley of Focushien powered punches to the Namek’s stomach, driving him higher and higher up. Finally, just as Roshi felt the peak of his jump height approach, he twisted in mid-air and decidedly drove a foot into piccolo’s side, simultaneously using the Demon King’s body to push off of to hasten his own return groundside and to stun the Namek to delay any pursuit. Piccolo however, only mildly put out by Roshi’s cunning yet hurried assault, flipped in the air and dropped, landing on one knee then, in his typically direct no nonsense fashion, took the offensive yet again and bull rushed the landing Martial Artist.

Roshi for his part brought his own fall into a landing roll, then rising and turning he slammed two glowing hands into the ground, channelling his energy into another geyser. This time however, the charging Demon King was familiar with this trick and swerved aside the irruption of blue Ki, though he was almost taken off guard when a second geyser followed by a third and fourth burst out from under foot. The second Piccolo narrowly avoided, the third grazed him, but by the fourth geyser Piccolo was anticipating and circumventing every underground explosion that followed, dancing between the irruptions and rapidly nit-picking his way closer to his quarry. Piccolo knew at his full power he could survive a direct hit from these feeble detonations relatively unscathed, but why take the risk when the old fool was so willing to waste his energy.

Truthfully Roshi was hardly putting any energy into the geysers and was in fact buying his enhanced chakras time to restore some of his lost energy reserves, the geysers were simply a lights show intended to look far more devastating than they really were; the whole idea was to get Piccolo dodging them, because if the Namekian went on a direct offensive, Roshi was a dead man. Luckily the old Namekian did as intended and danced a delightful puppets jig. Dance-dance, dodge-dodge, edging closer and closer until, just as the Demon King was about to close the distance, Master Roshi exploded one last smokescreen geyser right in the space separating them. Piccolo’s hesitation however was brief and with a slashing hand he cut through the geyser which was far weaker than he’d expected. Perhaps the old man was getting tired? Or not, as the bearded martial artist appeared to have vanished.

“Your disappearing acts grow tiresome. Don’t you have any better tricks?!” Piccolo mocked and whirled, lobbing a Ki ball at the old man who was attempting to flank him, but the Ki ball past right through the bastard “Gah, damn afterimages!” The Demon King Bellowed, letting rip twin eye beams in a completely random direction and was a little taken-aback when they connected with his elderly opponent who was in the process of attempting to blindside him. “Huh, who said dumb luck doesn’t favour the experienced hahahaha!” Piccolo jeered, watching the Turtle Hermit hit the ground in a crumpled heap, the skin of his arm badly scorched from where he’d only just blocked the unexpected eye-lasers with some Focushien assistance, yet instinct overruled the urge to curl up and die and Roshi clambered up to face his enemy “Up already, good, because I’m far from done with you.”

“Eh; nor I you.” Turtle Hermit gasped out through gritted teeth, his chest heaving with breathless strain; Piccolo merely smirked, only a little bruised and worn out himself, but otherwise as strong as ever.

Again there they stood, staring each other down with only the rushing wind, pouring rain and violent thunder to accentuate the tension as the ground they stood on, now dreadfully unstable from all the underground tunnels Roshi’s geysers had created, began to audibly crack and crumble. 

The intense standoff didn’t go unobserved, for about a hundred meters away, concealed among some rocks and dead bushes squatted the singular survivor of the slaughtered village, the beautiful twenty something girl who’s big green eyes were fixed on the two figures. She gaped in astonishment at the combat now unfolding. It happened she was a fan of the old school Martial Arts, not today’s pathetic excuse for tournaments but of the time before that clown Mr Satan. She’d grown up watching the legends of old battle it out, it’s why she could, only just, follow the blurry battle raging before her. Truly she feared for the old man, clever as he was, it was abundantly clear he wasn’t on the winning side of this battle, yet he didn’t back down, didn’t flinch, didn’t balk, so neither would she. It was then fear and grief yielded enlightenment and she suddenly recognized both of these fighters. 

One was the monster King Piccolo who’d terrorized the world when she was still a little girl, and the other was, of all people, her childhood idol, the legendary Master Roshi, a man of honour, respect and ethics. She’d memorized his face from old Martial Arts magazines, but she thought he’d died of old age years ago; yet here he was, risking his life so she could flee. But no, she couldn’t run away and pass up the once in a lifetime chance to see her childhood hero in action, perhaps even help him. How though? Sure she’d studied martial arts, but she wasn’t a threat to either of them. What could she possibly do?

“You are full of surprises, I’ll give you that,” Piccolo complemented, sounding ironic “Though I can also tell whatever power your using to bridge the gap between us is costing you dearly. Buuut,” He drawled “Seeing as it’s also increased your fighting efficiency, why should I take the risk of you killing me with a lucky shot when the final difference between us is simply that I can fly, and you….can’t, hahahaha” As he said it, Piccolo started levitating upwards, smirking maliciously and stopping to hover about twenty meters up, clearing his throat “Ah, yes, well, fun as it’s been my old friend, I’m afraid it’s time to finish this; got a planet to conquer and other enemies to stomp, you understand.” That sadistic grin again “But hey, don’t look so glum, as a thank you for such an invigorating combat, I’m going to send you off with an honorary bang; that’s right, you, yes you, get to be the first to witness my new technique; I call it, Popping Melons!” The overgrown alien sounded like a salesmen the way he pitched it, but Roshi, perhaps misinterpreting, wasn’t buying.

“Eh, I’m sure that’s how it is when you’re busting to use a toilet, but, oh wait, don’t tell me it’s that!” Roshi pulled a disgusted face, taking a step back in mortification, glancing warily up.

“What, NO! Don’t be disgusting!” Piccolo barked and Roshhi sighed with relief.

“Phew, you had me going there for a moment, things could’ve gotten –reeeal- ugly.” Roshi chuckled awkwardly while grinning inwardly as this pointless bantering was only buying time for his Ki regeneration technique to refuel his strength.

“Yes, laugh while you can!” The Demon King jeered, his arms held away from him, palms facing up to support two large melon shaped conflagrations of evil green Ki, Ki very different to his usual gold “Because like I said, you’re about to go out with a bang!”

“Oh, an aerial bombardment of misshapen energy melons, real imaginative; a true scholar of energy manipulation is our dear unbeloved Pickle King,” Master Roshi thought sarcastically, but instead let out an exaggerated gasp “Uh-oh,”

“Yes, Uh-oh.” King Piccolo echoed derisively.

“Um, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to be a little charitable with this poor old man?” Roshi fished.

Piccolo pretended a seconds contemplation “Hmm, I might,” That sharp toothy grin again “It depends on how well you dance little human!” 

With that the Ki melon bombardment commenced as big oval like energy constructs fell like the rain itself, ripping up the earth beneath with explosions a many; certainly not the biggest Roshi had seen but big enough to make dodging them without Focushien a near impossibility, and even then he was forced to use the legendary technique of evasive manoeuvring called The Headless Chicken, a very elegant and deceptive technique that involves a whole lot of darting about and confused yelping; you know, all very top level stuff only true masters can do.

“Yes, Dance-dance-dance the dance of the dead man dancing hahahahaha.” The Demon King Cackled, increasing the magnitude of his bombardment to wasteful extremes so only through those flawlessly timed Focushien bursts was Roshi able to keep evading. Roshi’s refusal to die eventually sucked the saver from Old Piccolo’s fun, especially when the insolent martial artist had the audacity to leave the ravaged crumbling dance floor and attempt a jumping attack “ENOUGH! Mellon Buster!” Piccolo Boomed, cupping his hands palm to palm in front of him to let loose an enormous energy beam with a melon shaped head, a beam that was aimed right at Roshi’s ascending figure.

“The guy sure likes his melons, not that I’m one to criticize, a nice big bouncy pair of melons are always a welcome sight, hehehe.” Roshi thought with a grim smile, not the least bit concerned about the closing energy beam as he put on another Focushien burst; it was time to play the second ace up his sleeve. Though to clarify, it was actually Piccolo’s love of melon juice that inspired the Melon Buster, but Roshi was of course visualizing melons of an entirely different sort.

While Master Roshi contemplated the vital philosophical importance of melons, several meters above, King Piccolo was mere seconds away from a victory celebration when the impossible happened. The old man swerved sharply to the left and flew, that’s right, -flew-, around the Melon Buster’s roaring trajectory, moving so fast that all the dissembling Demon King saw was a blurry purple streak that zoomed up and around in an arch before slamming into him, delivering an unseen strike to his midsection that packed such force it folded him in half, driving all the air from his lungs in a spray of blood and saliva as the ground far below them was annihilated in the Melon Buster’s concussive detonation, hurling loose muddy chunks of earth higher than they were. 

That devious, conniving trickster had been pretending he couldn’t fly all along, except by the time that little epiphany enlightened Piccolo’s unresponsive brain, Master Roshi’s purple glowing fist crashing into the side of his head added pretty exploding stars to that enlightenment as he was thrown into an uncontrollable spin that brought him crashing bodily down into the blackened smoking desolation of his own energy blast. Piccolo’s teeth knocked on impact and he began coughing up yet more blood soon after; the pain shooting through his guts was immense and his wide bloodshot eyes felt like they might pop, yet they weren’t eyes so blinded as to miss the old man now circling in the air above him, flying loop-the-loops and grinning like an idiot. It was the last straw, that mongrel would die over an eternity for this indignity.

Just after King Pickles hit the dirt, Roshi darted it, flaunting his –new found- flying talents as he charged up another Sonic Clap and directed it’s shockwave down on the now howling, ear-clutching Namekian as he flew over. Roshi loopty-looped and charged another Sonic Clap before making another pass to unleash it, leaving the Demon King, who had amazingly clambered to his feet, to stagger about gouging at his pointy ears yowling hysterically and firing off wild, randomly aimed eye-beams. Yeah, it was a low blow taking advantage of a Namekian’s vulnerabilities like this, but it’s only fair when that same foe is ruthless enough to do the same and so much worse given the opportunity. Plus, it was funny as hell.

His mirth didn’t prosper; just as Roshi committed to making a third pass with a Sonic Clap supercharged enough to cause permanent deafness and grant himself an easy victory, bad luck struck bold, struck hard and struck him true. All the Demon King saw now was red, the pain of his injuries drowned in fury and he launched off the ground at speeds even he never thought himself capable of; and Roshi, too exhausted from depending on Focushien so heavily, was simply too slow to react and took that monstrous fist square in the face, even Focushien couldn’t cushion the blow, it hit him so hard it literally threw him up among the merciless storm-clouds above, his head spinning violently with dizzy pain the whole way up. 

Eyes scrunched shut against the pain, it took a laborious exertion of will, but Turtle Hermit halted his assent. Now he hovered unsteadily in a swirling dark world of misty fluffy gray-black clouds. Roshi flared his aura, making it a protective shield against the moist, electric, barely breathable environment; rain fell even here, lightening streaked dangerously around him, fuzzing the hair of his beard while thunder louder than ever he’d heard assaulted his ears; and worse still, like a commit of gold, the King was closing in fast.

He couldn’t afford to take another hit like that, but another hit is what he’d get if he didn’t do something quick. Damn it, he’d expected Piccolo to recover, but not that quickly or that savagely. Where’d the egomaniac tyrant find the strength, especially with his hearing so scrambled? Regardless, there was no other option, Focushien was too self-destructive, meaning he had only one other technique that could keep things relatively even, and sadly it’s just as new and undeveloped as Focushien, minus the diabolical self-exhaustion, but using it was dangerous in other ways. 

Blue Centre is another theoretical technique he’d contrived just last year; put simply it’s a combat mediational trance, a complete mental cleansing of all distractions, invoking utter tranquillity; it doesn’t enhance speed, strength or anything so base, instead it heightens the senses, clearing and calming the mind by filtering out all non-threatening irrelevancies, thereby allowing one the proclivity to fight in the most efficient, conservative and logical fashion possible. Blue Centre doesn’t make one a master of battle, rather one becomes the embodiment of the present conflict and it’s every aspect, knowing the thoughts of his enemy, knowing his environment without seeing or memorizing, instinct evolves to near precognition, the world around slows, breathing is perfectly harmonized with intent, no energy is wasted, every movement has lucrative gain, emotions are ousted from judgment. Blue Centre grants one true freedom, but only through relinquishment of the insecurities and concerns anchoring one’s mind could one ever truly attain that freedom, and in that space of time before King Piccolo reached him; Master Roshi, despite understanding how undeveloped the trance is, embraced that freedom; a passive blue aura began pulsing and rippling about his body, and then, things started happening.

With a madman’s unconcern, the hovering Turtle Hermit half-heartedly leaned first left to dodge a golden orb of Ki that tore inches past his ear then just as unhurriedly right of the incoming green fist. Remaining completely expressionless, Master Roshi nonchalantly drove his own fist into Piccolo’s nose, producing a wet crunching sound, then he pirouetted in the air and spun a solid yet sedate looking spin-kick into the confused Namekian’s shoulder, and as Piccolo floated backwards, unbalanced, Roshi flung a lazy hand forward and a stream of Ki slammed into his reeling opponent. 

Looking like he hadn’t a care in the world, Turtle Hermit floated lazily forward, though the lazy appearance was just a beguiling front concealing the deadly procession and infallible intellect behind it. Unaware of this, Piccolo steadied his spinout, wound up and sprung a potentially devastating kick at his unhurriedly approaching enemy. But Roshi simply leaned back, grabbing the Demon King’s heel even as it passed bare centimetres from the tip of his nose, then, increasing his own elevation, Roshi swung Piccolo into the perfect position beneath him whereupon he planted a stolid downward stomp-kick to the Namekian’s pointy jaw. No celebrations, no pride, just pure focus was Roshi, who, still gripping that leg, instinctively swung the King up above his head just in time to sabotage the trajectory of the murderous Ki beam Piccolo cut loose with an instant later. The lightning bolt of gold Ki that could’ve slain Turtle Hermit outright streaked off among the clouds, but Roshi, was too busy back-flip kicking Piccolo in the spine to care.

Piccolo twisted like a streamer in the wind, righted himself then launched into a machine-gun volley of kicks, punches and elbows that even in his trance Roshi was hard pressed to dodge until Piccolo made the mistake of reaching out to strangle him, because Roshi just slapped the grasping hands aside and clapped his own cupped palms against Piccolo’s bloodied ears. Instead of a follow up attack, Roshi did something odd and casually flicked the Namekian in his right eye as if flicking some annoying bug; then stranger still, he gave the green man a mocking two finger clip to the forehead, as if disciplining a troublesome child. 

The feeling of humour was lost in Blue Centre, but it’s fundamental concept wasn’t, though Piccolo himself didn’t find it funny, his facial reaction and tensing muscles gave his next wild swing away and Roshi floated a twirling 180 degrees around behind his raving, cursing nemesis, delivering a heavy open-hand chop to the back of Piccolo’s neck and a swift kick in the backside for good measure. This wasn’t childishness on Roshi part, well ok, maybe a little, but realistically if he riled Piccolo into more reckless energy wasting endeavours, the Namekian might wear himself out enough to benefit Roshi; a slim hope, but any chance small or big is a windfall. 

Time to get serious; Roshi surged forward, his heightened instincts guiding him under Piccolo’s roundhouse kick where, without consideration of Namekian anatomy, he punched the overgrown brute in the crotch then flipped upside-down and kicked Piccolo in the chin. Piccolo jerked back as Roshi set himself right side up then stole the offensive again, pressing the old martial artist back with a tireless barrage of rapid-fire limbs. Roshi kept a steady retreat and dodge pattern as he lacked the speed to dodge stationarily and the toughness of arm to block or deflect such vicious hits. Turtle Hermit remained unworried, King Piccolo’s whirlwind assault was a blur yet the Namekian as usual was flailing wildly now, practically foaming at the mouth with frustration, his mistakes were legion, one mistake was enough, an over extension, a poor left upper guard and Roshi broke Piccolo’s momentum and began peppering the large alien’s ribs, chest and shoulders with a combo of punches aimed for the most sensitive and vulnerable spots to compensate for his lacking strength.

The defensive was Piccolo’s now, the shots he was taking weren’t severely damaging him but were well enough delivered to hurt and keep him reeling backwards through the misty clouds, unable to fend off his luminescing attacker. Suddenly the assault halted, but good sense didn’t stop Piccolo long enough to see why before his foul temper demanded he exhale a tremendous beam of Ki from his open maw at first opportunity, and as any projectile without a target does, it hit nothing.

“Wasteful.” A flat, dispassionate voice said, Piccolo whirled to the left, it was the old man, that eerie blue liquid-like aura still rippling about him, the pest’s voice sounded different to, zombie-like, yet its critical undertone swelled his humiliation over his own ineptitude at slaying this weakling. 

“DAMN YOOOOOUU!” Piccolo raged, fist clenched, lividly trembling.

“I have a new trick…..want to see?” The unintimidated old bastard quarried, his deadpan tone somehow baring a sarky undercurrent; King Piccolo would never admit it but this geezer was really starting to creep him out, and with good reason. 

Before Piccolo could react, the wrinkled martial artist raised his index finger above his head as a stray bolt of lightning streaked past. Roshi caught the bolt on his fingertip like a lightning rod, then quicker than the Demon King could blink. Roshi, taming and stabilizing the wild electricity with his own Ki, channelled it down the recipient arm through the stomach and up to the sparking fingertip of his other arm which now pointed square at the enemy. –ZAP- The supercharged Ki augmented lightning bolt left Roshi’s index finger to slam cracking into King Piccolo’s chest, right where the heart should be on a human. Naturally it didn’t kill, but the Namekian was flung away hurting, his flesh charred and blackened. For all the pain though, King Piccolo was more akin to a berserker than he knew; pain simply made him more rabid and ferocious. 

Taking the initiative, Master Roshi slipped deeper into that perfect calm, that mystic separation of self and flesh that melded into a greater, more intuitive and deadlier whole. He experienced no fear in this trance, no emotion; here in this deepest of mediations his mind wandered fields of glittering insights and epiphanies through the instant enlightenment of which his body performed the required motions to thwart his far more potent adversary; executing offenses, defences, feints and deceptions with a flawless precision and super intelligence that left the Demon King utterly miffed for lack of retaliatory stratagems. Piccolo could not land a single blow, and any he fended off he was intended to, and those that slipped so easily through his guard like water between splayed fingers stood as mere preludes of yet greater embarrassments to come. What infuriated Piccolo most was the old man’s completely blank stoic face, betraying not a sign of strain or effort or pain or even warning of his next move.

Perfect warrior though Roshi had become, he remained too feeble of strength and weary of body to defeat his nemesis. Piccolo knew this yet knew not how this pitiful human was confounding him so. Failure and counter failures looping on repetitions a plenty in time numbering seconds had the Namekian raving mad and hurling insults foul enough to have the whole Namekian race blushing. But then, a windfall, a slight twitch in the Martial Artist’s dispassionate stony veneer did Piccolo spy. He wasn’t sure what it was, weather distraction or feigned distraction, but it was something and seeing no better options, Piccolo lunged full speed, struck and scored with a savage punch to Roshi’s forehead followed by another ferocious fist Turtle Hermit’s abdomen. In a blur of violence, Piccolo began repaying hurts received and then some.

That’s the problem with using untested techniques, they don’t work properly; Master Roshi’s trance had hit a bump in the road so to speak, it had twice before too, though luckily Piccolo had missed the split second lapses, but now the monster was getting wise to the technique’s flaw. Now the turtle Master was in a world of pain and trouble; he’d never been hit this hard this many times in his life. Fortunately though it seems that –bump in the road- doesn’t halt the wagon, Roshi blocked out the pain, concentrated, and instantly the trance resettled itself; time seemed to slow a little, Piccolo again became that open book.

Anticipating Piccolo’s next attack, Roshi twisted aside, darted back and bought himself just enough distance and time to cup his hand together infront of himself and shout “Cannon Force Repulsion!” The technique proclaimed shot a fist of telekinetically condensed air into Piccolo’s stomach, winding and folding him over to plummet out of the clouds like a falling arrow, his ass being the tip of that arrow. Merciless, compassionless, Roshi chased after, caught up, slammed the toe of his shoe into the falling Demon King’s midsection, intensifying the velocity of Piccolo’s plumet. Master Roshi wound up for an energy attack that should further quicken Piccolo’s fall and smash him against the rocks below, inflicting some much overdue damage, but luck that cruel old mistress of his did a doublecross and broke his trance yet again; a momentary lapse his enemy was utterly ruthless in the exploitation of.

Large twin beams of gold roared from Piccolo’s outstretched hands; Blue Centre restabilised enough to get Roshi dodging, but not fast enough, one of the beams clipped his side, burring the skin horribly as it passed. Of Course Turtle Hermit didn’t cry out, Blue Centre frowns on such emotional expressiveness, nope, instead Roshi found himself summersaulting three times in the air before flinging his legs downward and cutting loose with a modestly potent blue Ki beam that shot from the souls of his shoes of all things and exploded against Piccolo’s defensively crossed arms. Despite the trance Roshi was taken-aback; never in a billion years had believed it possible to shoot Ki from his feet. What kind of crazy ass trance had he created? 

Both fighters landed, but the fight didn’t halt this time, the battle had come too far for pointless banter; the end was approaching one way or another. They rushed eachother, Piccolo headlong and Roshi zigzagging in a blur of footwork that cancelled out Piccolo’s superior speed when the Namekian closed, laying on a heavy volley of punches. Roshi danced back and around, opening up with a return volley that Piccolo deflected with his forearms then lashed out with a kick that Roshi anticipated and dodged by spinning around behind Piccolo and aiming a jumping elbow between the Namekian’s shoulder blades, but Piccolo was already turning and elbow deflected elbow. Quickly Roshi landed, crouched, swept a tripping leg in an arc, Piccolo danced clear then back again with a clock-cleaner kick of his own. 

Master Roshi barely intercepted the vertical kick with his knee, the jarring impact would’ve hurt if not for the trance, but instead he rode upward force, locking his arms around Piccolo’s own reaching arms, trapping those sharp nailed strangler’s hands and levering himself further up to head-butt the Namek once, twice and once more with double the force before leaning back and slamming both feet into the Demon Kings Adam's-apple, using their interlocked arms to lever out additional kicking power. Promptly disentangling his arms, Master Roshi back-flipped away, aiming two powerful Ki blasts as he did; together, the blasts exploding against the Namekian’s mid-section packed enough boom to stagger him some. Piccolo chuckled tartly then blurred forward, raining down vicious hammer-fists and undercut knees attacks, forcing Roshi back onto the defensive. The trance slipped again, one elbow made it through, took Roshi in the cheek, then his legs were swept from under him and a boot collided with his ribs sending him sliding backward on his stomach over shredded rock. Pain, coughing, spatters of blood. The trance resettled, its serene tranquillity immersing him, again he embodied the conflict and stole Piccolo’s wind, literally, by punching from all fours and delivering a flying head-butt to his gut. 

“You may be a tricky sod; but you’re as weak as ever;” Piccolo rasped, stumbling back a few paces “Your already slipping, I can tell; sooner or later, you’re going to make a mistake, and when you do, I assure you the end will be so slow and agonizing your imagination won’t keep up!” Master Roshi didn’t respond, his old enemy spoke truth; it’s only a matter of time. 

Roshi’s success so far wasn’t due to any augmented physical attributes, he was as weak and exhausted in Blue Centre as out of it; rather his success was courtesy of the trance’s gift of intuition, and even then, if Piccolo were more level-headed or stronger than he is, Master Roshi knew he’d be dead right now trance or no trance; he might be scoring top shots through pure skill and technique, but the damage he was dealing was likely little more than a modestly painful inconvenience to Piccolo; if he didn’t find some way to put this animal down soon, it’d be otherworld for him. As if to punctuate the thought, the trance slipped again. Piccolo saw the flicker and grinned carnivorously.

Mixing Focushein and Blue Centre was an option but a stupid one; using two highly undeveloped and unstable techniques that are polar opposites of eachother, calm prosecution and wild power simultaneously, he’d destroy himself before Piccolo got the chance. Worse still, over the last half minute he’d been fighting, Roshi felt the trance was doing something funny to his consciousness, he was fighting, but memory of what passed seconds before kept slipping in a lightheaded haze. Despite its repeated faltering, Blue Centre was becoming more a threat than an asset, it was pulling him in too deep, like a pit of quicksand, yet the quicksand consuming his mind was also all that kept him alive; quandaries oh quandaries…..

-Memory Gap- 

Suddenly Demon King materialized behind him, savage fist falling. But Roshi instinctually caught the punch in a back slung palm, gripped the green fist, pulling his foe down and forward with unexpected force while leaping artfully up and back in an arc, arching his spine just enough to slam two well-placed heels into of Piccolo’s left temple, sending him corkscrewing a few meters away….

-Memory gap-

Pain, perfuse sweating, gasping for breath, Roshi felt himself rolling, the trance must’ve broken and resettled again; he turned the momentum into a break-dancer’s move he’d once performed as a young man, evading Piccolo’s ground cracking stomp then scissor kicking at Piccolo’s knee joints. As the Naemk buckled, Roshi, spinning on his hip, drove one backward leg up into his foes chin while the other locked around that thick green neck where upon he performed a handstand with Piccolo’s head still trapped between his heels, and with all his strength, flicked his legs forward, hurling the Demon King straight into a blackened, dying tree fifteen yards away. The trance broke, Roshi grinned, the dolt had gotten tangled in the thick gnarled branches. It was a grim smile though, he’d done well, given it his best; but his best simply –wasn’t- enough, and Blue Centre was messing with his head too much, so reluctantly, he let it go completely.

“Time to lay my cards on the table and bet it all;” He proclaimed to himself “Either I win the pot, or I go down broke……either way, this end now!”

There was a furious bellow, the tree exploded, a swarm of splinters riding the wings of a mighty gale. Roshi had to cover his eyes to keep from being blinded and as a result barely sensed the boot coming for his forehead. He swerved but it still clipped him and he staggered, whatever effects remained of the trance must’ve saved him there “No such thing as twice lucky, it now or never Roshi!” His mind declared and he agreed; instead of dodging Roshi jumped high into the air, using the lingering vestiges of Blue Centre to follow Piccolo’s movements as the Namekian regrouped from his foiled flying-kick and jumped up after him, just as Roshi wanted.

“Leaving so soon, and without your goodbye present;” Piccolo chortled, drawing level with Roshi as they both ascended “Here, take this, with my condolences….!” King Piccolo pulled a hand back that was charged with enough Ki to level a large city, the power radiating from it made Roshi’s skin prick and beard fuzz, yet he had his own game plan, and before Piccolo could vaporize him, Turtle Hermit raised his hands to either side of his head, fingers splayed and shouted the magic words. 

“SOLAR FLARE.” With those magic words spoken, the world lit up in an all-consuming blaze of light bright enough to shame the storm above. 

While a blinded, cursing Demon King shielded his eyes, Roshi promptly opened a shoddy telepathic line with the briefly mentally unguarded Namekian through which he mind-screamed as high and loud as he could, an effect likely worsened by the physical proximity because it certainly scared the crap out of Piccolo who doubtlessly believed Roshi was trying some new, unprecedented, never before used kind of mind-fuckery; the hurried Sonic Clap Roshi discharged just before flying madly off probably didn’t elevate the poor guy’s misery either 

“Thanks Tien, I owe you big for teaching me that one.” He didn’t just have Tien to thank but also Goku’s obnoxious loudmouth Otherworld teacher King Kai for inspiring him with the idea of telepathic deafening. King Piccolo screamed and screamed, and –screamed-, pawing at his eyes, ears and temples, unable to decide which ailment most deserved his useless motherly doting as he descended shakily, seeking the reassurance of solid ground to placate his sensory deprivation; the only pity of it was that Roshi lacked sufficient strength to end this fight for good while the enemy was vulnerable. Nevertheless he used the time wisely getting himself some distance to prepair for the grand finale. But what grand finale would suffice?

He considered a Max Power Kamehameha but decided against it for several reasons the most logical of which said in the time it’d take bulking up then placing the remainder of his severely reduced power into an ages to charge up beam, Piccolo could very well sense his intentions and recover quick enough to interrupt the process, or at least dodge the humungous beam. King Piccolo was no saiyan, he didn’t thrive on battling a challenging opponent or playing the imovaable object against huge energy beams, quite the opposite, he sought to wipe out any challenge to his strength, as he claimed he’d do after ending this match, which was kind of ironic actually as it was this battle that was sparing the Demon King a humiliatingly quick demise at the hands of a Z warrior or one of his fellow hellions. 

Master Roshi quickly found a suitable, un-cratered patch of ground, a real scarcity now. The point A point B distance ratio wasn’t great, a few dozen meters or so, but it was the best available, so the legendary master prepared himself, using his Ki channelling and replenishment skill to gather precious energies for his signature attack. That’s right, crazy or not, a Max Power Kamehameha was his only hope he had left “Or is it?.....” It was then, in that desperate moment that a truly devious plan came to him. True he couldn’t fight Piccolo head to head anymore, but this one last trick might actually work, and he should have just enough energy to pull it off; he couldn’t be bothered contemplating the ins and outs of it though, Blue Center had left his mind numb just as Focushein had taxed his flesh; far as Roshi was concerned, this’d either work, or it wouldn’t, simple as that.

The Demon King snarled, his head was ringing and his eyes burned something fierce. He shook his head, willing the pain away, noting he was not being attacked despite his vulnerable state; the cowardly human was fleeing, that light trick was just an escape tactic, curse him. Piccolo cracked an eyelid; dark as the stormy day was, his eyes remained sensitive, but with a flaring of his aura to cleanse the affliction with fresh energy, his sight returned and his ears bleeding stopped squealing. Growling in both rage and arrogant superiority, he scanned the area….nothing, nothing, noth….no wait, there the wretch was, 40 meters away on a stretch of ground their battle hadn’t graced. Except the martial artist wasn’t fleeing, in fact, he was waiting. What was the pitiful human playing at? It didn’t matter, in but a few seconds the pest would be dead and the world would be his for the taking once more. 

Piccolo simply walked, didn’t rush, just walked the first few yards toward victory, savouring this moment to remember forever onward. Ten paces later his impatience won out and Piccolo broke out into a full speed charge when the old man inexplicably crossed his arms in an X before him. Some fearful defensive tactic perhaps? Whatever it was it wouldn’t help him. Such was Piccolo’s thoughts before he saw something unusual enough to halt him in his tracks. The martial artist’s body began to glow white, the air itself shimmering in heat waves around him, as if a waterfall of melting glass oozed like a barrier between them. Then, impossibly, the elderly human suddenly split into four, yes four exact duplicates of himself, all bald, bearded and shirtless, all standing in a neat line, exact mirror images of one another. “More trickery!” Piccolo thought in frustration; this worm was now openly insulting his intelligence “Hasn’t he learned I cannot be out-maneuvered; fool!” 

Three were illusions he knew, but which was the real one? Piccolo’s annoyance doubled when the four shifted stance, lining up one behind the other, each adopting a different stylized fighting stances, held them, then, to the snarling Demon King’s outrage, all four took flight, two to the left, two to the right, then those pairs split up, each keeping roughly a fifty meter distance from him, as they began circling like hungry vultures at high speeds. However, that wasn’t the strangest part; the strangest part was, right where the four had been standing before taking flight, was a fifth duplicate standing as a clear invitation in that rippling window of air. What was this madness? Piccolo wasn’t stupid though, he knew the old man wanted him to attack that stationary copy so he could launch a sneak attack. Heck, the bastard had even started the air rippling with heat to hoodwink him, just in case he went after one of the other illusions and……and, that was it. 

Four fakes and one real, the obvious illusion would be the stationary one, the heat-screen cunningly exposed the bait as an illusion by contradictorily trying to make that illusion seem like the real man cowering afraid behind the smokescreen. King Piccolo smirked; three hundred years of experience told him that –that- was exactly what he was meant to think. Oh yes, his brilliant mind new better, he was too clever to be outfoxed by this lowlife amateur, he knew their type, and the most logical place for such an amateur to hide his real self, would be in place of the most obvious illusion, the bait.

“How ironic.” He internally cackled; externally however, mustering the absolute pinnacle of his speed, strength and energy, Piccolo launched himself bodily straight ahead with all of his murderous intentions focused souly on his second greatest enemy. Oh yes, this menace had caused him too much grief to die quickly in some anonymous energy blast, Demon King Piccolo wanted the full hands on experience, the full exaltation of making that worthless wretch scream, and as he rocketed closer, all he could think of as a fitting war cry was “DIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!” King Piccolo’s clawed hand lit up with more power than yet he’d used today, a finishing move, a killing move aimed to gouge clean through the old man’s heart; and it went through alright; right through another damned afterimage…..then things started happening to fast for The Demon King to realize just how badly he’d fucked up. 

Piccolo had no chance to rage and curse because on his peripheries he caught movement; he whirled a full 360 degrees and saw not one, but all four copies of the old martial artist closing in from four different fronts. That wasn’t all either, to the Namekian’s utter disbelief, the four copies were no longer the lean muscled figure of the original, oh no, instead they were bulked right up like giant fleshy tanks and sheathed in that same dreadful bright purple aura that had heightened the martial artist’s strength, speed and power earlier. inertia took hold, and in that millisecond window of danger awareness, Piccolo’s eyes scanned the oncoming forms, seeking some kind of shimmer or transparency, anything to give away the genuine article, yet they were all perfectly identical and appeared as flesh and blood as himself. Which ones were the damned illusions? Turns out none of them were, a truth Piccolo found out the hard way when the jaws of prodigious muscle bound power clamped down on the bewildered Demon King just as he tried to jump clear, but it was too late….the trap snapped shut. 

It couldn’t have been more flawlessly done. Splitting into four identical copies might’ve divided Master Roshi’s strength into quarters, but when those four quarters bulked up to his 100% state, their combined strength further bolstered by Focushien focused into a synchronized attack packed the full physical punch of Roshi’s 100% form while cancelling out the drastic speed reduction by confusing the hell out of King Piccolo who’d spent this whole battle being frustrated by Roshi’s aptitude for illusions. More than that though, it was a psychological game, the trick was to get the foul tempered freak angry enough to impair judgment, but not angry enough to forget his ego or his physical dominance over the whole fight, thereby granting him the misplaced confidence that he’d ultimately outwitted and outfought his opponent when really it was his own egomania and short fuse that wrought his downfall and not Roshi himself.

“How do you defeat a brainless opponent possessing overwhelming power; easy, make them think they have a brain when they don’t.” He’d once tried teaching Goku and Krillin that lesson, but Goku, being Goku didn’t really get it; Krillin wasn’t much better but at least he grasped the basic concept even if he was useless in its application. But then who was he to judge, it was they who’d surpassed him, not the other way round. 

The four simultaneous impacts of his four attackers weren’t just overwhelmingly powerful, but also very specifically targeted, resulting in a domino like cause and effect pattern of crippling injuries The Demon king dropped to his knees, his body twisted and bent in ways a body isn’t meant to; his arms and legs bent backwards, uncountable joints and bones broken, his arched spine unnaturally twisted and the whole right side of his face was a mess. The agony, was just, impossible, never had Old Piccolo imagined such misery, not even when that brat had punched through his chest so long ago. The Fallen King wretched up a puddle of purple blood then curled up in terror as the four purple glowing juggernauts converged in a storm of violence that broke must’ve pulverised his remaining unbroken bones as pain overloaded his senses and reality became something frighteningly surreal. This wasn’t the goofy old man who’d arrived on this battlefield, this was a very –very- angry human hell bent on revenge.

As abruptly as it began, the beating subsided and the defeated Demon King was mortified to discover he was paralysed from the neck down and in mortal agony; he gurgled, cracked open his bruised, swollen eyes, and focusing though the blurriness, Old Piccolo beheld two oddities. Firstly the four duplicate heavily muscled old men melded back into one, Piccolo met the cold eyes in the stern, pitiless face of his one true, now complete tormentor over who’s shoulder hovered that second oddity, and to look upon it was like staring into a mirror. 

“S-Son,” The broken thing that had once been the world greatest menace whimpered so hoarsely you could scarcely hear him

Master Roshi frowned, then followed the dying monster’s gaze. There, floating just behind him, arms folded, continence stoic as ever as his white cape fluttered behind him, was Piccolo Junior, they’re Piccolo, now one of Goku’s greatest allies. Master Roshi wasn’t surprised; it’s understandable that the son, sensing the father, would come to investigate. Judging by Piccolo Junior’s expression this wasn’t a happy reunion; there was no pity for his elder in Junior’s eyes, only disgust as he took in the smoke and stench of death rising from the ruined village beyond the trees.

“Son…..help, me.” The elder begged the younger.

“Hmph; you’re beyond help;” Junior stated tartly “And your no father of mine.”

Weak as the Demon King’s voice was, the gravely spike of indignant outrage, wasn’t “You ungrateful whelp; I gave you life!” Piccolo Senior rasped harshly “You owe me your loyalty, you owe me you respect, you owe me your whole existence,” The old menace gasped for air through a crushed neck “YOU OW ME EVERYTHING! Now I command you, kill this filth, and together, we will rule this world.”

Piccolo Junior glowered at the pitiful excuse for a conqueror that was his sire; Master Roshi wasn’t worried, Junior’s days of attempted world conquering were far behind him, and indeed Junior looked away, spat, then chuckled mirthlessly “That’s the only thing I have to thank you for, you gave me life so I in turn could atone for your revolting screw-ups…..there can be only one Piccolo, and I’m him, whereas you are nothing but a deluded old fool who cares only for power and conquest; you disgust me.” Piccolo spat again, this time on his sire then turned to Master Roshi and smirked “He’s all yours.” 

“Much obliged.” Master Roshi nodded curtly, an uncharacteristically dark, satisfied and slightly sadistic smile curving his frazzled, blood speckled moustache; he’d been waiting for this moment all his adult life, and finally, it was here. He raised a glowing hand, about to end it, then paused thoughtful. Piccolo Jr noticed Roshi had just had an idea of some sort and asked 

“What is it?”

“Oh nothing, just one last homage to an old enemy, a little going away present to remind him once and for all that he’s ancient history buried and forgotten; it’s just a shame I hadn’t figured this out sooner.” Roshi looked down at the fleshy green wreck, grinned “Watch closely, and keep your senses fixed on my energy signature; trust me, you’ll get a real kick out of this.”

Roshi’s sudden spirited declaration was justified, because from nowhere the answer to a 200 year old mystery had just hit him like a frying pan. At last he understood why, despite 200 years of trying, he’d never succeeded in streamlining his Max Power Form; but having split up into four divided quarters of himself with Tien’s multi-form technique -another thank you he owed Tien- then having those quarters buff up to maximum simultaneously yet separately had showed him his illusive miscalculation. He’d simply not been channelling his Ki or shaping his aura correctly; 200 years of trying and failing all because of some silly oversight even an amateur wouldn’t have blundered on. How had he missed it? So humiliating; but an embarrassment he’d be cleansing right now.

Piccolo Jr blinked but didn’t reply as the old master’s whole bulky body was suddenly sheathed in a red aura so unlike his original blue. Impossible, the old man was actually transforming, his power level sky rocketing, at least by olden day standards back when Vegeta and Nappa invaded. He watched on, stunned.

It was so simple now he knew what he was actually doing. Gradually the cumbersome heavy bulk of Master Roshi’s muscles began to shrink, not in power or potential, but in size, growing slimmer, denser and more compact without losing any strength at all; he even grew taller, now close to equalling The Demon King’s prodigious height. By the time the transformation was done, he felt light as a feather, his speed matched his strength and toughness perfectly, his movements were nimble, it was the perfect warrior’s body; and his power…..his power wasn’t what it was, oh no, it was far greater, it had to almost match Goku’s level back when Vegeta and that bald brute Nappa invaded. Roshi had always suspected he had untapped energy reserves, but this…..this was plain crazy. This form was to him what the Super Saiyan transformation is to Goku. 

If only he’d accessed this form sooner, trained it, perfected it, maybe he could’ve been more helpful on countless occasions. Fat lot of good this strength did him compared to today’s generation; but why dwell, it was still an achievement, even both Piccolos seemed taken aback, especially the Demon King who’d finally opened his senses to the world; the way he was goggling at his son’s energy levels was comical, though it annoyed Roshi cause that face was meant to be for him. Oh well, no point in show boating anymore, he had a debt to repay on behalf of those he’d failed to avenge years before.

Super Roshi’s red eyed stare made cold, razor-edged titanium look soft and cuddly as he regarded the crippled object of his scorn “This is for my Master, Mutaito, for my friends old and new, for the innocents I failed to protect from your machinations, and for the settling of debts; I balance these scales and deliver their vengeance…..” Super Roshi snarled, low and deadly as his newfound power crackled crimson bright around him; then much more sternly, in a monotone voice he barely recognised, Super Roshi announced “This battle is over……you lose.….Goodbye.”

With the merest upward twitch of his index finger, Super Roshi telekinetically catapulted the monster who’d haunted his nightmares for so long straight up into the sky, then he dropped into a stance, drawing out the heights of his new transormation’s power in an aura storm that shook the ground he stood on, sending vast spiderweb patterned cracks across it surface. It was Kamehaheha time, but instead of taking the usual stance, the Turtle Master cupped his hands but separately, keeping them at their repective sides as he squared his shoulders, arched his spine, pointed his elbows backward and then began

“KAAAAA….MEEEEH…..”

“NOOOOOO, NOOOOO, NOOOOO, MERCY, MERCY, SON HAVE MEEEERCYYYY!!!!” The Demon King screams were pure blissful music to Roshi’s ears, and Piccolo’s as well.

“HAAAA….MEEEEEH......”

Two luminescent sanguine orbs began to charge and crackle in Roshi hands, growing, and growing in power, just a little more.

“SON, PLEEEEASE, DON”T LET HIM Do…..”

“HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!”

Super Roshi thrust his hand upwards and released his new -Dual Kahmehameha Wave-; the result was two massive red beams of sizzling energy that went screaming straight into the sky after the begging, balling fiend, gaining incredible ground. About half way to impact the twin beams merged together into the ultimate Kamehameha wave which mere moments after collided with vaporized every molecule of the screaming monster that was one the Demon King, bane of the earth. 

Reverently the clouds opened a path for the mighty Kamehameha to pass through on its final journey to space, letting in a great beam of bright sunlight that retraced the beams trajectory back to fall warm on the two figures far below for a short, tranquil moment before the curtain of clouds fell closed and the rain resumed as normal.

“Farewell, old enemy of mine.” Super Roshi whispered, then in the long silence that followed, he let his body shrink back down to its original skinny old man form, a form no stronger than it’d been this morning.

It was Piccolo who broke the long companionable silence “I have to hand it to you old man; that was quite impressive, and here I thought you were just a dirty old pervert.” 

Roshi almost fell on his face at the comment, but recovered his composure “Ah, hahahaha, yeah, I guess even when you’ve seen it all, people can still surprise you.” He scratched his head awkwardly, winced, so many bruises; what a fight it’d been; still he wondered something, asked “I thought I sensed you up there. You were watching the whole time, weren’t you?” 

“More than watching, I was about to make myself known just as you showed up.”

“I see, so you came here for the same reason I did then?”

“Not exactly the same reason, but a related one; and I’ve got to tell you when I first saw you come charging out of those woods I couldn’t believe it, I thought you’d gone totally senile….”

“Not totally, but give it a few more years.” Roshi laughed. 

Piccolo guffawed, continuing “But then I saw the look you had in your eyes, it was the kind of look that, well, let’s just say I inherited all of my father’s memories….”

“Sometimes old debts have to be settled, no matter the cost.” Roshi stated laconically.

Piccolo nodded, understanding completely, paused, then mumbled “I, uh…” Awkwardly he cleared his throat, tried again “I think I understand now why the others still defer to you as Master despite having surpassed you long ago; you came here to face an enemy that far outmatched you knowing you might die, yet you took the challenge on yourself anyway and in the end, through your skill, wisdom and experience combined with determination and good strategy, you overcame the odds and emerged triumphant…..” Piccolo actually smiled, something akin to respect in his eyes “Krillin, Tien, Yamcha; now I see where they get their bravery from; retired or not, you’re as much a warrior as Goku himself and…..and you’ve earned my respect, Roshi.”

Master Roshi nodded curtly “And you have my friendship, for whatever its worth.”

Piccolo returned the nod “Hmm, and I assume this settles the debt between us?”

“What debt? It was always your father my grudge was held towards, never you; you were Goku’s rival.”

Piccolo chuckled, amused “Yeah, I was, guess quite a few have passed through that roll; now even Vegeta isn’t a match for him.”

“It’s a sign of the times, everyone has their time and mine was long ago; but Goku….” Master Roshi simply shook his head, chortling. 

“I guess some people never grow old.” Piccolo remarked, smirking

“Don’t I know it.” Roshi laughed, and astonishingly, Piccolo chuckled with him

There was a sudden explosion far to the west and a concussion wave rocked across the sky, patenting the clouds and drawing Piccolo’s gaze “Hmm, sounds like that one could be nasty.”

“It’s probably one of those old androids as I don’t sense any substantial energy signatures coming from that direction area.” Master Roshi theorized.

“Hmm, that’d be my guess too,” Piccolo agreed “….I’d better go sort it out before it gets worse.” He turned, paused, looked back “Uh, you be right getting back to your island, you look pretty beat up.” Piccolo wasn’t kidding, Roshi was a mess, he could barely stand up straight.

Roshi was momentarily startled by Piccolo’s concern, but opted for modesty “I’ll be ok, it isn’t as bad as it looks, besides I’ve got my own means of transport” 

“Ah that’s right, you can fly;” Piccolo grinned, recalling his father’s shock at realizing the old man had feigned a flying handicap.

Another distant boom “You’d better go sort that out.” Roshi said.

“Right.” Piccolo agreed more seriously “See you later old timer.” Roshi huffed at the jab, but Piccolo was already gone, good thing too as it seemed he had female company approaching.

 

She was jogging and stumbling through over the wrecked ground, all five foot eight inches of sexy feminine wonder, her clothing was wet and clung to her body, revealing just what a magnificent figure she had to go with that stunning heart shaped face and those green eyes, like gems they were, sparkling and shiny. Another positive sign was she’d even retrieved and brought him his discarded martial artist’s jacket, she clutched it to her heaving shapely chest, it was now his favourite shirt 

Finally she caught her breath enough to stammer “Y-your Master Roshi, aren’t you? I swear I’ve seen you before? I know I have” She stuttered, those big green eyes sparkling with an sort of childish admiration despite her being in her early twenties. 

She handing him his top while Roshi composed himself, then replied ”Thanks, and yep, that’s me, in the flesh. Guess you’re lucky I was passing by, that maniac had a nasty reputation for, well, nastiness, but your safe now, here with me and that’s all that matters.” He said, grinning a not so benevolent grin; luckily she didn’t seem to catch the perverse lilt in his tone though.

“Thank you for helping me get away, I-I don’t know what I was thinking, I could’ve just kept hiding and he’d have moved on, but I was just so angry that I chased after him”

“Wait, you tried to fight him?” Roshi blurted, surprised out of his thoughts momentarily.

“Tried being the operative word; I’ve studied some Martial Arts when I was younger, but I couldn’t even touch that monster no matter what I tried, and he just kept toying with me and laughed; I would’ve died if it weren’t for you; I-I owe you my life Master.”

“No-no, your life is your own my dear; although, if you feel like giving me a reward, then, how, about, A KISSS!” He leaned forward expectantly.

“Uh, um, o-ok…” She stammered, feeling indebted enough to think a peck on the cheek as a harmless request. 

“Oh yeah baby, I’ve still got it!” As the women leaned in, Roshi could scarcely contain his excitement, he felt his hand automatically rising to cup her breast; but miraculously, he stopped himself just as her lips brushed his bruised cheek with feather soft sensuality. What was he doing, trying to feel up a girl who’d just seen her loved ones and her whole village murdered? For once Roshi reigned in his primal impulses, she didn’t deserve what he’d almost done; plus if he was going to start training again, he’d have to tone down his impure behaviour anyway. Unfortunately as she pulled away, her eyes widened at where his hand had paused but not quite touched and she leaped away, mortified.

“Oh-no, it not what you think…..” Roshi tried, too late.

“UCH, Dirty pervert!” He slapped him so hard his head spun and he fell on his butt “Imposter, you’re not Master Roshi at all, the real Turtle Hermit would never treat a lady this way; we’re even now, goodbye!”

“Aye, what ya talken about, ya crazy girl,” He mumbled groggily “I’m about as Roshi as Roshi will ever, be and…..hey, where ya going, wait!” She stormed off toward the woods and the ruins of her village beyond, he tried to scramble up to follow but fell on his face, too exhausted. 

Dang it, he’d exercised self-control and still got clouted anyway; girl knew how to throw a punch too, that smarted. He pondered going after her, but decided doing so would only make things worse, not to mention he was in no fit state to be running after anyone. Besides, within a few hours Goku would sort out whatever was happening in Otherworld, yes he was that confident in his former student; then she’d get her family back along with anyone else killed by this mishap when The Eternal Dragon was summoned. Till then there’s no point in hanging round here, standing in this rain was a good way to catch cold. 

Roshi cast his senses outward, found the Ki signature he was looking for, nearby as expected “Hey, Baby Gamara, you there?”

“That you boss? It’s kind of freaky when you do this telepathy thing you know?”

“Freaky only to the impractical.” Roshi quipped tiredly.

“Oh Ha-Ha;” Even living as long and seeing as much as he had, Roshi was still amazed that such a sarcastic talking turtle even existed “So what’s up? Need a lift?” Gamara asked. 

Roshi considered it, his physical state, he wasn’t in a good way, he could fly back but since Gamara was already her, he’d take the slightly easier option, though the dizzy spell he was not looking forward to at all “Oh the sacrifices I make for this planet.”

“What? didn’t quite catch that.” Gamara mind muttered, Roshi hadn’t realized he’d thought that into the link, man, he really was worse off than he thought.

“Oh, nothing, yes thanks, I’d appreciate a lift back to the island.”

Baby Gamara arrived not a few minutes later and Roshi wearily mounted up, strangely not even noticing the crazy spinning and dizziness. By all rights it was a miracle he’d survived today, yet for every victory there is a price, and for the first time ever, Master Roshi, just for a moment, felt the full crushing weight of his age “344 years, that’s a heavy load, and I hope it keeps getting heavier hehehe.”

There was perhaps more in store for Master Roshi than even he himself might realize, after all, he though, jumping off Gamara and watching the black turtle spin away into the bleak cloudy sky, he was the first Z Warrior and no doubt he would be the last as well once the others passed away. It was a lonely thought, Roshi reflected as he stood on the lawn of his little island paradise in the cool rain, but it was his life, a worthwhile life, protecting the earth had once been his responsibility, and perhaps, he mused, smiling at the thunderclouds above, once Goku and the others were gone, it would be his responsibility again.

“But not any time soon.” He told himself, heading inside where it was warm and safe, because for the time being the Turtle Master was content sleeping in, watching television, socializing with friends, and their wives, or simply relaxing on his favourite lawn chair with a nice drink in hand and a tasteful bit of reading material in the other. Oh true The Earth would always face some threat or other, but when the day came for him to re-join the good fight, he’d be ready and waiting. But for now, things were good, so why spoil them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To whoever had the endurance to read this 30K word-count fic, I say thank you and that I hope you enjoyed it. Also, a big thank you to any who leave reviews, even if it’s just a few words of praise or simply a statement telling me the plot, grammar and characterizations were crap, or that the fight’s pacing just plain sucked; any feedback is still greatly appreciated, especially if I ever get time to write again. Critique leads to improvement and all that.


End file.
